Starmer's biggest danger is the doubts from within

The Labour Party has been thrust into power at an extraordinarily uncertain moment. PA Photo

Electoral defeat for Jonathan Ashworth, a leading Labour campaign manager, sets the terms for how Keir Starmer must juggle competing demands, despite the untrammelled nature of his majority.

Just a few weeks ago, Mr Ashworth, the son of a casino worker, was declaring that he would be at the heart of the most working-class cabinet in British history. So far as the claim was true, it spoke to the traditional concerns of the socialist movement.

With his defeat, Mr Ashworth’s legacy on the politics of the new government will be on its foreign policy.

He fell to an independent who campaigned strongly on Gaza. It was a story that was reflected across a series of seats. Some went to independents, others were held by Labour at some cost. The now-independent former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn won back his north London seat as Palestinian chequered scarves were waved by his supporters.

Thangam Debbonaire, another Labour frontbencher, lost her seat to the resurgent Greens, which have made Israel’s war on Gaza a key plank of their manifesto. That party of the left has grown from one to three MPs, and it will know that radical policies can benefit its candidates further.

The more than 400 seats won by Labour give it, on the surface, an impregnable majority. But hundreds of those MPs will feel that they hold their seats on borrowed time. Mr Starmer can take away the knowledge that there will be rebellions. In part, he has been steeled for these and taken pre-emptive actions.

The former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith owes his continuing place in Parliament to Mr Starmer purging the Corbynite Labour candidate Faiza Shaheen. She ran as an independent and split the vote with Labour.

But the vulnerabilities of the victorious will be not far away. Even with a majority to compare with Tony Blair’s in 1997, Mr Starmer will have to be careful not to be knocked off course by doubts from within.

The outcome of the election was not affected by the series of pro-Palestine independent challenges that emerged. There were high-profile victories and some nerve-shredding close runs. But if new MPs, particularly the very many on the backbenches, start to feel that the party’s foreign policy is likely to cost them seats next time round, there will be a corrosive impact.

Rebellions even for dominant governments are not a good look. The conflict in Gaza has already lasted for months and each week its impact on politics is likely to grow. Further escalation against Hezbollah and Iran would intensify matters yet further.

The Labour Party has been thrust into power at an extraordinarily uncertain moment. The geopolitical environment is increasingly dark as Europe faces both the rise of the far-right governments and the possible return of Donald Trump in the White House.

Mr Starmer is determined to embrace a Trump administration in whatever way it can, even though that will mean a rough ride in domestic politics. With Europe fracturing, it has an opportunity to achieve some post-Brexit rehabilitation.

At a time of uncertainty, five years of a mainstream government is something of an asset in and of itself. The strong UK military base and its nuclear deterrent are something valuable to put on the table. That’s why, after all, one of the most important first acts by the new prime minister on Friday is to write letters of last resort to the submarine commanders who control the country’s nuclear weapons.

With France’s strike force called into question by its divided politics, the UK can take the role that the US once took in Europe – offering a kind of “guns for butter” trade off. The nuclear deterrence is a means to better economic ties with Europe.

The old adage of Westminster politics, that the opposition occupies the benches in front of you, but the enemy sits behind you, will have a big impact on how exactly Mr Starmer achieves his foreign policy goals.

Will he be able to carry forward a commitment to open trade and free trade agreements? While deals are on the table for the GCC and India, Labour is almost certain to face pressures over how these agreements are structured.

The new prime minister will be able to trade off the collapse of the Conservatives. Rishi Sunak has now topped the table of leaders to have lost most seats, with 250 MPs forfeited to opposition winners.

The opposition benches will be a place for the most successful western democratic party to regroup, but much will depend on the name of the new leader. Figures such as Tom Tugendhat and former foreign secretary James Cleverly have been returned.

With the entry of the Reform UK party in Parliament, the impulse for the Tories will be to fight the nationalist fire with fire. In doing so, however, they will have even less to say to the voters who backed Labour to an overwhelming degree.