Among the turmoil of the American and Israeli war with Iran, there is another kind of uniquely British turmoil going on quietly behind the scenes. The government of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has, for many who voted Labour in 2024, been a disappointment.
Mr Starmer has an enormous majority in the House of Commons. The Labour party had been out of power for 14 years and some expected Mr Starmer’s government to change Britain for the better. Instead, almost two years since he became Prime Minister, his government has desperately tried to keep up with and react to events rather than boldly shaping them in a new direction.
The satirical magazine Private Eye published Mr Starmer quotes in which he uses the phrase his “number one priority” to list a series of very different supposedly “top priorities”. If everything is supposedly a “top priority”, then nothing is. Now with the US-Iran war dominating the headlines, behind the scenes the sense of political malaise in Labour remains unchanged.
Opinion polls put Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party in the lead with about 25 per cent of potential votes. Labour trails at about 17 per cent. Moreover, Mr Starmer’s influence with US President Donald Trump seems negligible, although there is widespread relief that the UK is not directly involved in attacks on Iran. Even so British influence worldwide is in decline.
What should Mr Starmer do? One clue comes from the top of his team: Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves. In a public speech, she argued that Britain is now ready to align with EU business rules. She also asked the EU to lower post-Brexit barriers to trade. Briefings to journalists speak of a “reset” with the EU – perhaps as yet another “top priority”.
If it happens, a closer alignment with the EU would get rid of some of the economic costs of Brexit, and the extraordinary new bureaucracy that penalises British businesses. "Brexit did deep damage,” Ms Reeves said – confronting reality at last in a public lecture last week. Ten years after the 2016 vote to leave the EU, you might say those four words were long overdue. Ms Reeves added that the UK wants some kind of reset: ”Let me say this directly to our friends and allies in Europe. This government believes a deeper relationship is in the interest of the whole of Europe.”
All very nice, but then Ms Reeves did exactly what the Labour government has done from the beginning, by making a clear statement and then fudging the issue with the usual government caveats of insisting she was not trying to "turn back the clock" on Brexit. Why not?
Others are less timid. The Labour Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, called for the UK to rejoin the EU customs union and single market and to launch the governing party’s next election campaign on a promise to seek full EU membership. Big figures in the party including Wes Streeting and David Lammy say they are open to (unspecified) changes.
The British election guru John Curtice noted that realignment with Europe is popular with Labour voters, quoting data from the British Election Study and the National Centre for Social Research that noted that 80 per cent of Labour's support in 2024 came from people who said they would vote to rejoin the EU. Mr Curtice also noted that Mr Starmer had conceded that "Brexit had significantly hurt our economy" and that Britain needed to "keep moving towards a close relationship with the EU”.
This political mood music suggests the Labour party senses an opportunity, but the phrasing is still timid. What are they scared of? Why the constant tiptoeing around the most important key economic issue that they clearly understand has damaged Britain and needs to be corrected?
Perhaps the answer has more to do with personality than politics. Mr Starmer is a lawyer. His career was in carefully building a case and finally getting to a verdict. But we live in a world where Britain has separated itself from our closest European trading partners and has – to put it politely – a difficult relationship with an unpredictable American ally.
Moreover, on a recent visit to Edinburgh I talked with Scottish National Party members who appear very optimistic that they will do well in May’s Scottish parliament election. Then they will push again for Scottish independence. An independent Scotland would be warmly welcomed by the EU.
So what should Mr Starmer do? He cannot – as one Scottish friend suggested – get a “personality transplant”. It is too late to become a charismatic character. But Mr Starmer could at least seize the initiative, acknowledge publicly that Brexit has failed, and realign British politics away from the “Little England” mentality that holds back bold change.
My guess is that Mr Starmer will continue with his steady, careful, "don’t be bold" politics and inch towards the EU, but it will all be too late. May elections may damage Labour so much that Mr Starmer’s position in Downing Street could be one of the first casualties.
The political choice is to make history or to be history. We’ll find out which it is for Mr Starmer very soon.
