The recently departed Downing Street chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, called his project to win power "Labour Together".
As he left his post, the irony that McSweeney’s vehicle bore that name was lost on no one. It was used by McSweeney to appeal to the left while disguising his true designs on reaching out to the right. This agenda came ready made for Keir Starmer, catapulted Labour to power but fell apart under the pressures of government.
Having hit the buffers, Mr Starmer now must choose the leftward element and jettison the attempt at triangulation. That means coming up with policies that will please the party and most Labour MPs – if not the right-wing UK media – and frustrate the opposition Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, and the even more threatening Nigel Farage and his followers.
The Starmer government will play to McSweeney-free strengths – more Labour, less other. For Starmer, who was a human rights lawyer and a North London red before his rapid, McSweeney-curated ascent, this might be less difficult than it sounds. Whether he has enough fiscal room is not a given – he has some capacity but not much.
He’s still behind that famous black door, however, which did not seem probable very recently. While the usurpers are licking their wounds and regrouping, a dark horse could be emerging. The growing feeling is that these latest events have served to highlight the unsuitability of Andy Burnham, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting. What is required, if not Starmer, is a figure who is the nearest Labour has to a statesman.
Step forward Ed Miliband, the former party leader who lost narrowly to David Cameron’s Conservatives in 2015. The current Energy Secretary is seen as sensible and experienced. Crucially, Miliband appeals to MPs from the various factions. Critically and tellingly, he has said very little about desiring a second coming – he knows the game, he has played it before.
After days of high drama at Westminster, it will not be forgotten that at one stage it looked for all the world as though the Prime Minister was toast. He’d lost not only his chief of staff, but his press secretary, Tim Allan, a bruiser in the mould of Alastair Campbell. In Scotland, Labour's leader north of the border, Anas Sarwar, publicly called for him to resign. The head of the civil service is reportedly being tossed aside, too.
Starmer’s poll ratings are likely to remain perilously low and contenders for his crown are set to step up manoeuvres. Someone posted a smart-looking web page promoting Rayner as Labour leader, which went online and was then hastily taken down – too late, it was seen. Streeting was known to have poured scepticism on Starmer’s premiership and the situation surrounding the now disgraced Peter Mandelson – later the Health Secretary published messages exchanged between himself and Mandelson, and, sure enough, some were highly critical.
On the horizon lies the Gorton and Denton by-election in which Burnham, another leadership challenger, was hoping to secure the Labour nomination, only to be kiboshed by the National Executive Committee. Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, which is home to the constituency, had every chance of winning the seat. Instead, Labour has selected a candidate who does not have Burnham’s profile, with the result that what was a safe bet now seems extremely dicey. If Labour were to lose, Starmer will be blamed. Likewise, the forthcoming local elections loom large. Humiliation there, as seems likely, and more vitriol will descend.
This, against a backdrop of an administration that has made U-turns galore, managed to alienate sections of the populace for no real gain and has been found wanting in its decision-making and judgment. The latest issue – why Starmer went ahead and appointed Mandelson ambassador to Washington despite knowing of his relationship with the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein, a friendship that continued after the latter’s conviction for sex offences – appeared to be the last straw.
When the resignations and Sarwar’s dramatic intervention followed, Starmer seemed dead and buried. But no, he lives to fight on.
It may prove to be something of a false dawn. He was assisted in his struggle by the tendency of pretenders to jump the gun. Burnham turned up at the party conference and made a naked bid for Starmer’s job, in the setting of Labour’s annual set piece, which only backfired spectacularly. He misjudged the location, timing and the mood of delegates who had gathered to publicly celebrate, not descend into chaos and infighting. Then, Burnham did it again, by tilting his cap at Gorton and Denton, without ensuring he would win the necessary permission of the NEC. He fell at the first hurdle.
Rayner is still mired in an official investigation into her tax affairs. Until that is resolved, she is unlikely to be able to progress and, similarly, should wait and get her ducks in a row before openly campaigning to succeed Starmer.
Streeting has been attempting to be taken seriously as a future PM for a while, such that it is serving to undermine his authority – in politics, those who put themselves out there often come a cropper.
Sarwar is not jostling to be in No 10, rather he was keen to shore up Labour’s base in Scotland. Nevertheless, he, too, would have been wiser to have waited instead of calling a press conference to denounce Starmer. Far from gathering support, Sarwar has made himself isolated – a position duly underlined by the Cabinet members subsequently declaring, one by one, their regard for the Prime Minister.
So, too, the known wannabes, to the extent that Starmer stands as the one unifier who can bind Labour, who led a brilliantly successful election campaign and delivered a thumping majority. That is the symbolism now, it’s what he told a crucial meeting of Labour MPs, many of whom, let us not forget, owe him their jobs. A session that was billed as his last hurrah turned out to be anything but. What emerged was an emboldened Starmer, who received plaudits from them, not brickbats. It was a remarkable turnaround.
Whether it is a temporary lull, of course, is a different matter. One more serious embarrassment would finish him and there are those election contests to come.
Still, all that is in the future. For now, he's in charge. What we are likely to see is a Starmer 2.0, someone who is not bound by the calculating rigidity of McSweeney, who will pander to his parliamentary debtors, in Cabinet and on the backbenches. He should have done it before but McSweeney, who wanted him firmly keeping an eye on the Tories and Reform UK, forbade it. That is how Starmer is pitching, that he understands the strength of feeling against him and his regime, and from here on in, he will respond accordingly. In return, he expects recognition and yes, a certain gratitude.
Starmer is by no means safe, but he is better off than he was. On it lurches, the roller-coaster of present high-level British politics.
