UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has attracted several thinly disguised newspaper political obituaries in the wake of last week’s drubbing in the local and regional elections. But the curious case of his main rivals standing back from a fight for his job is seemingly the only thing keeping him in Downing Street.
A distinguished lawyer who was not even a politician 15 years ago, Mr Starmer’s leadership is being tested to destruction by the abrupt slide in his Labour party’s electoral fortunes. In 2024, the Prime Minister led Labour to a “loveless landslide”, but its perceived failure to deliver the change it promised has resulted in a severe voter backlash.
There are leaders with strong credentials who are stalking Mr Starmer’s job, but none are yet ready to take on the mantle.
Former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner recently issued a statement following what she termed a “historic defeat” last Thursday. “What we are doing isn’t working, and it needs to change,” she claimed. “This may be our last chance. The Labour party must now live up to our name: we must be the party of working people.”
The problem for Ms Rayner is that in her own backyard in Manchester, Labour candidates suffered just as badly as they did in London’s Camden, Mr Starmer’s base. The same issue presents itself for Andy Burnham, a former cabinet minister-turned-Mayor of Greater Manchester who revels in the sobriquet “King of the North”.
Mr Burnham’s challenge is that he is not in Parliament. Lieutenants of the mayor are said to be offering seats in the appointed House of Lords to Labour MPs to pave the way for him to move into an eligible position. Given the results, pundits question this strategy, saying that there is no such thing as a safe seat for Labour to run a high-profile leader keen to return to Parliament.
Mr Starmer’s loyalists, such as Business Secretary Peter Kyle, point out that Mr Burnham’s own commitments to Manchester are pretty strong and should be binding. “Andy is not in Parliament, because he chose to leave his seat in Parliament and chose to serve the people of Manchester,” Mr Kyle said on Monday.
The third mainstream potential challenger for Mr Starmer’s job is Health Secretary Wes Streeting. He has his own troubles with his seat on the fringes of north London. But according to one newspaper report on Monday, Mr Streeting is ready to develop his narrative for leadership.
Mr Starmer wants to ramp up his style of governing in the wake of the defeat. In a speech on Monday, he launched a new slogan: “Strength through Fairness”.
The issue facing the Prime Minister and any of his would-be challengers is that the debt markets won’t tolerate the kind of lurch their instincts are telling them to undertake. The benchmark 10-year bond for UK debt hovers around 5 per cent on the markets, and the Prime Minister is thus constrained in his actions.
The stinging rise of the centre-left Green party in urban areas is not one that has investor buy-in. The poll-topping performance of the Reform UK party, on the right, equally does not inspire the confidence of the pension funds.
None of this makes Mr Starmer a kind of ring master hanging on in the face of the collapse of all the alternatives. It just means that the UK is caught in state of nervous impasse. The signal for what comes next has not yet been sent, because the results from Thursday’s voting pointed in so many directions.
Ms Rayner and Mr Burnham are old-style politicians who are carefully harvesting their chances while offering a flawed prospectus. In Ms Rayner’s case, it is the unresolved tax issues that triggered her resignation as deputy prime minister less than a year ago. In Mr Burnham’s predicament, it is the unproven necessity of winning a seat in Parliament.
The implicit promise that the British state could provide the same, and more, with efficiency and better targeting is a promise that is easy to make. Delivering it is, again, an unproven element.
One prediction that seems certain is that the Labour party will attempt to provide a more defence-focused and domestic investment-themed government. On Wednesday, the King’s Speech agenda for government is to include the nationalisation of British Steel. It has already nationalised the railways. Doubling down on this direction of travel is the obvious thing to do. Incumbent and challenger alike agree on it.
There is a question of looking out the window from the corridors of power and wondering what those on the rise are offering that chimes with voters. The Greens and Reform offer a slapdash populism that is driven by the personality of their leaders. And that is Labour’s biggest conundrum: none of those jockeying for the top job are registering beyond the ranks of conventional politics.
