One year of Keir Starmer

JVL Introduction

Keir Starmer has just come up to the end of his first year as Labour leader.

Margaret Hodge is ecstatic: “One year into his leadership, I can feel proud of Labour again – I hope those who left have the confidence to come back.”

Alan Johnson on LBC, in an orgy of self-delusion, couldn’t restrain himself. In December 2020 he tells us, he thought Labour was finished “because this cult of the far left had virtually taken over the Party at all levels.” But not to fear, brave Keir Starmer put himself forward and turned it around…

The rest, as they say, is history.

Except the polls are dreadful, no-one has a clue what Labour stands for, and most sensible commentators of whatever political persuasion, see Starmer as making a right old cobblers of it.

Here blogger Phil Burton-Cartledge casts an enquiring eye over the whole damn mess.

This article was originally published by All That Is Solid ... on Sun 4 Apr 2021. Read the original here.

One Abysmal Year of Keir

A full year since Labour returned to the mean and elected a man in a nice suit. Looking back at the occasion, this blog met Keir Starmer’s election with a bouquet of scepticism. The power grabs and rolling back of internal democracy, a default to the bourgeois common sense of politics, a load of dishonest but politically convenient hand wringing over antisemitism – despite the leak of that report. As I wrote of the left’s relationship to the new leadership, “We’re going to have to live with someone whose first instinct is to praise the government when they’re doing well, and keep quiet when they’re not.” Prepared? What I was expecting was a leadership not unlike Ed Miliband’s, something that at least meant well which the majority of the left could support at a remove. Unfortunately, Dear Keir is yet to touch even this low bar.

In policy terms, he writes in Sunday’s Observer about the failings of the Conservatives, and how Labour’s “ambition for Britain must match the moment. Not merely fiddling with tax incentives or creating pots of money for towns to scrap over but creating an economy that works for everyone.” One might point out this is exactly how Keir has spent his time in the Leader’s chair. Attacking the Tories from the right over the minutiae of corporation tax rates, quibbling with the process and details of Coronavirus management, and only going on the offensive when either Marcus Rashford or teaching unions or SAGE have prepared the ground for him, this falls somewhat short of a functioning and effective opposition, let alone anything demonstrating ambition capable of rising to the occasion.

A minor fuckup. Is Starmer running both Welsh and Scottish Labour?

But I’m nothing if not fair, so let us consider some of the arguments in Keir’s defence we haven’t looked at already. For PoliticsHome, Adam Payne quotes an anonymous (of course) “senior party source” saying the party was in a terrible state when Keir inherited it. The party was near to bankruptcy too, so the story goes. There might have been a time when a journo might have challenged claims made by their interlocutor, but this wasn’t one of them. At the end of 2019, the party’s statement of accounts published under Keir’s leadership show that following the election the party had a tiny surplus. Under previous leaders the party routinely got into multi-million pound debt holes. Another lie then. But there is some truth to the notion Labour wasn’t in tip-top shape. The campaign itself was poorly coordinated, and organisation from region down to branch level were riddled with accumulations of dysfunctions. What else might one expect when the Labour right stretched every sinew in their scorched earth struggle against the leadership?
The other argument in the leader’s defence, it is said, is something Keir can’t do a great deal about. With the pandemic clogging the headlines and everyone’s horizon depressed by it, the punters aren’t especially interested in what politicians have to say – particularly when they’re not in government and have no bearing on the management of the crisis. To all intents and purposes, Labour are whistling in the wind and we’re going to have to wait until Coronavirus had faded into the background before the party’s offer is noticed. Therefore, coming out with bold policy statements or making loud oppositional noises is a waste of time or looks like point scoring. The moment for a vision for government is … not yet. Now, this is pretty unconvincing for a couple of reasons. Contrary to what our PLP and shadcab whisperers think, Keir Starmer has had plenty of coverage. And nearly all of it has been soft and supportive. If Keir isn’t getting noticed, it’s because he’s not using these plentiful avenues to say anything memorable or meaningful. Second, it appears Keir’s anonymous outriders can only conceive of opposition in two ways, as either shouty and ranty or as “constructive”, which always means giving the government a free pass save some minor aspects of policy and positioning. There was a third way, which any assessment of Keir’s record needs reminding of, and that’s what Jeremy Corbyn accomplished in the dead duck days of his leadership. Contrary to the invented histories circulating for factional advantage, not only was he ahead of the government in calling for proper quarantine strategies, he was constructive because he offered policy solutions to problems, which the Tories promptly took up. This is something Keir has steered clear away from, apart from a ritualistic request that the government extend the Job Retention Scheme or carry on the measly uplift to Universal Credit.

Since his first day in the job, the openings have been there for Keir to carry on in the same vein, but he didn’t. Why? One might put it down to a personal failing but in fact it has everything to do with his politics. Despite being weak on opposition, Keir is the most authoritarian (though certainly not authoritative) leader Labour has had since Tony Blair. His politics, such as they are, depend on affirming state authority and particularly government as not just the key but the only institution for getting things done. Keir’s opposition to Boris Johnson, when it has manifested, has not gone for the jugular nor offered different ways of doing things because that might undermine the government’s authority by creating an alternative to it. Even though he would be this counterpoint, Keir’s strategy depends on the restoration and protection of state authority. Talking about policy and attacking the Tories on big picture stuff, or even his reticence to mention scores of thousands of dead, is an attempt to oppose while preserving the authority he seeks to draw on if he enters Number 10. In practice this means anemia. He has let the Tories define the Covid-19 crisis, and as such they’re setting about defining the peace. Clever clever games leading to stupid stupid outcomes.

In terms of conventional politics, he’s failing. But much more serious than poor parliamentary footsy is the potentially existential crisis the leadership and its right wing cheerleaders are dragging the party into. As this blog has pointed out enough, the main consequence of Jeremy Corbyn’s time was the recomposition of the Labour vote. The core Labour supporter is now the immaterial worker, someone whose working life is bounded by the production of care, knowledge, and social relationships – typically, though not exclusively, for the profit of others. On top of this, the way Tory policy works to keep their voter coalition together by shielding older people, retirees particularly, from the (private) consequences of austerity, the fall out of the Brexit mess and the Covid slump, keeping the property market overheated and, indeed, subordinating crisis management to these ends, the Tories are underwriting the long-term decline of their support by raising a generation of anti-Tory voters. Jeremy Corbyn’s clear anti-austerity message in 2017, plus the promise of a softer Brexit was able to cohere these emerging interests around Labour while keeping enough of the old core vote on board. As a new political consciousness in the process of emergence, there was a certain softnesss to it but, more importantly, conditionality. For it to solidify and identify with Labour the party needed to act consistently in their interests. Instead, there was more internal warfare and the stoking of Brexit – purposely by the right, including a certain Keir Starmer – as a wedge issue. The result was confusion, a panicky arse covering adoption of the second referendum, and a partial fragmentation of the 2017 coalition as a few hundred thousand defected direct to the Tories, and some two million migrated to the Liberal Democrats, Greens, the nationalist parties, and abstentionism.

The inescapable task of Labour strategy is bringing these people back, holding on to the new core that stuck with Labour in 2019, peeling soft supporters off the Tories, and looking at ways of energising the spontaneously socially liberal and small s socialist layers of younger workers. This is not just crucial for winning elections, but for securing the future of the party itself. According to the wisdom revealed by Claire Ainsley, Keir’s policy guru and writer of matters on the new working class, this is what has to be done … but thinks traditionalist appeals to flags and family would secure them. We have then an explanation for the plastic patriotism and similar embarrassing efforts, but from a position utterly ignorant of the relationship between the materiality of immaterial labour, social liberalism, and the constitution of new class identities. If this wasnt bad enough, something the dim wattage of Labourist thought should recognise – bread and butter issues, and how the Tories stymie them at every turn – is completely off the Starmerist radar too. It’s almost as if they’re not serious about power.

It gets worse. The loudest cheers for Keir come from the right of the party frothing at the purge of the left. Though, of course, they like to pretend it’s a struggle against antisemitism, not least because they lack the arguments to contest the left at the level of ideas and strategy. As was pointed out last June, the problem with driving out the left, whether by adopting right wing positions or by simple diktat, is the party is ridding itself of the very people who were crucial to mobilising voters at the last two general elections. I’m not talking about campaigning, but those who did the unseen and under-the-radar work of converting friends, workmates, and family members into giving Labour a go. Those who, completely unbidden, were an influence in their online and offline networks and helped cohere support around the party. As dreadful as the 2019 result was, there’s a reason why, bar 2017, Labour got the highest number of votes it had since 2001 and the greatest number of votes in England since 1997. In other words, Keir Starmer and his host are demobilising the party’s support. Now, they might believe they can do a simple trade: putting the backs up of the new core vote in the big cities where Labour MPs sit on huge supermajorities doesn’t matter if tacking right wins back support in the so-called Red Wall and soft Tories elsewhere. Completely forgetting immaterial workers are distributed across the land. Winning back the Brexit-supporting Tory switcher snack bar manager at a provincial railway station isn’t worth it if the party does so on a prospectus alienating the younger, low paid precarious workers she oversees. Chasing after Tory supporters on a Tory-lite platform is less a matter of digging your own hole, but driving the spade into one’s foot.

This is why Keir Starmer is doing abysmally. He’s waging class politics alright, the class politics of the other side. As he waxes about our once-in-a-generation opportunity, the possibility of the party carrying on wanes that little bit more. “Starmerism” and its trajectory doesn’t just risk Labour becoming less than the sum of its parts, but allowing it to fall apart completely. The polls have consistently shown upticks in Green support and faltering gains for the LibDems. The SNP are poised to sweep all before it, and Plaid Cyrmu is putting in a better showing. And thanks to the worst possible start to the Hartlepool by-election, a new party has a shout of coming from nowhere to take more support off Labour than the Tories. Might Keir be able to turn it around? Possibly, but in politics as with most things the best indicator of future behaviour is past behaviour. He managed to repair Labour’s polling position before crashing it, and having disaggregated the party’s support he’s not about to put it together again without a fundamental strategic rethink. Though, of course, having an impotent and useless party at a remove from the messy business of proper politics suits the Tories and the Labour right alike.

Comments (21)

  • goldbach says:

    Aaron Bastani, on Novara Media, is a shrewd analyst. His view is that, if Labour does badly in the May elections, “Starmer is toast”. I think that he’s right. If he is, then Labour is also toast and I can only see Conservative governments for a decade.

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  • The Muizenberg Mauler says:

    Long queue of people eager to do to Starmer what Byron instructed the traveller to do at Castlereagh’s grave. Next in line, ICYMI, is this slightly more detailed job from Finn in Jacobin https://jacobinmag.com/2021/04/keir-starmer-labour-party-leader-uk-left

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  • James Dickins says:

    It now looks like Labour will lose the Hartlepool by-election:
    https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/labour-face-losing-seat-to-tories-in-hartlepool-by-election-polling-shows-3190526

    And that it will gain only around 20 seats in the 129-seat Scottish parliament, with pro-independence parties on up to 79 seats:
    https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/scottish-election-2021-new-poll-suggests-alex-salmond-and-george-galloway-could-enter-parliament-as-pro-independence-parties-win-79-msps-3188877

    The Labour right needs now to think long and hard about whether its ‘war on Corbyn’ was really worth it. Repent at leisure if you will, but the Labour right needs to repent – and to do so publicly.

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  • Mary Davies says:

    A brilliant blog.

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  • John Bowley says:

    It is predictable that the Labour Party will do badly in the local elections. The blame for this is with those in the PLP who smeared the previous leadership and consequently much reduced the electable image of the Labour Party. These include Dame Margaret Hodge and Sir Keir Starmer and a few more.

    I say again, in my honest opinion, Keir Starmer is the worst party leader ever, a top-down spiteful oppressor, also a coward (of course), a sly manipulator, untrustworthy, uninspiring, incompetent and counterproductive. As is clear elsewhere, indeed in the posted article, Starmer is being worse than useless.

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  • Is Starmer worse than useless? Depends what he wants to achieve and if, as it might appear, his aim is to weaken the Labour Party then he is doing quite a good job. Anyway he seems to have managed to loose Hartlepool. Wonder how thrilled Hodge will be with him then?

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  • Daniel Finn’s article is a good analysis in that he demonstrates that Starmer’s first priority was tackling the left not Boris Johnson and the way to do that was through exploitation of ‘anti-Semitism’ though he doesn’t quite draw the obvious conclusion that the Labour Left should have rejected the whole basis of the false anti-Semitism campaign i.e. it wasn’t about anti-semitism – ever.

    No one demonstrated that blindness more than John McDonnell who tweeted that ‘on the day we should all be moving forward and taking all steps to fight antisemitism we are suspending JC.’ Momentum issued an almost exactly similar statement.

    What the Labour Left seems incapable of doing is to reject the whole anti-Semitism narrative. There never was an anti-Semitism problem. There was a Zionism problem certainly. But to suggest that suspending Corbyn impeded the fight against antisemitism shows that the Labour Left is still incapable of undertanding that Corbyn was removed as a result of a campaign by the British Establishment which used ‘anti-Semitism’ as the vehicle to accomplish it.

    In short we have to look at the failures of the Labour Left as much as grin in glee at Starmer’s electoral misfortunes. It was not difficult to understand who and what Starmer represented. Back in February I wrote a blog

    Keir Starmer is the candidate that the Deep State & the British Establishment want you to vote for
    https://azvsas.blogspot.com/2020/02/keir-starmer-is-candidate-that-deep.html

    Yet important parts of the Momentum Left actually backed Starmer. There is and has been a comprehensive failure by the Labour Left.

    As I have often pointed out. Labour will inevitably have a few paedophiles but does anyone accuse it of having a paedophile problem? When Jacob Rees Mogg can get away with retweeting the leader of Germany’s neo-Nazi AfD Alice Wiedel and making overtly anti-Semitic ‘illuminati’ comments about 2 fellow Tory Jewish MPs we can be certain that it was NEVER about anti-Semitism.

    Instead of pointing to the beam in our opponents eye we need to look at the mote in our own.

    The moral of the story is that the Labour Right would far rather the Tories than Corbyn had succeeded. That is why the calls for ‘unity’ with Starmer are so pathetic

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  • Allan Howard says:

    I hear what you say John (Bowley), but IF Starmer and Co – because of their smearing of Jeremy – are consequently responsible for ‘the much reduced electable image of the Labour Party’, then how does one explain the variation in the polls since he was elected leader? At the point where Starmer was elected leader (on April 4th last year) the LP were 20 plus points behind the Tories, but within a couple of months the gap was down to about an average of six points, and as of the end of August and for the following five months or so the polls had Labour and the Tories neck-and-neck. The Tories then edged ahead again, and were on average about four or five points ahead of Labour during February, and then edged up to an average of seven or eight points during March and into April.

    My point is of course that if it was down to Starmer and Hodge and other members of the PLP smearing the former leadership and reducing the electable image of the LP, then how do you explain the variation in polling results since Starmer was elected leader – ie from a 20 plus gap down to even-stevens (for nigh on five months), and then gradually edging up to an average of seven or eight points?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election

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  • Allan Howard says:

    I thought I’d just check back over the past couple of months to see if there were any specific things that accounted for the gap between the Tories and Labour growing during said period and, as such, did a search on the Sun’s website re >starmer<, but there was nothing that particularly stood out as damaging (which one assumes would have been covered by most of the MSM). But it does seem odd that at the point where Labour/Starmer are even-stevens – having reduced the gap by 20 plus points – that not only did the Labour/Starmer projectory NOT continue, but just stayed at even-stevens for around five months, and THEN began to reverse.

    Anyway, I just happened to come across the following article/piece of black propaganda in the process. Bear in mind that Jeremy was reinstated on November 17th, and had the whip withdrawn the very next day, but despite THAT being the case, apparently, according to the Jewish Labour Movement in an article posted on 21 Nov at 0:18 (and no doubt in the hard copy):

    'Jewish Labour members warned of ‘growing level of harassment’ after Jeremy Corbyn was reinstated'

    JEWISH Labour members have been warned that there has been a "growing level of harassment and intimidation” after Jeremy Corbyn was reinstated to the party.

    The Jewish Labour Movement told members in an email that they should prioritise "mental and physical wellbeing first.”

    The Sun understands it is the first time leaders have had to send out the type of email.

    In the message, seen by The Sun, they warn: “We are alarmed of the growing level of harassment and intimidation taking place within Party structures, which seeks to further diminish and deny the scale and impact of anti-jewish prejudice.”

    The email adds: "Do not feel obliged to attend Party meetings if you are likely to experience unhealthy or discriminatory environments.”

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13258785/jewish-labour-members-harassment-corbyn-reinstated/

    Yep, the very moment Jeremy was reinstated all of us anti-semites were back in action again harassing and intimidating Jewish members!

    I bet they couldn't stop laughing when one of their number thought of THAT one. As I've said before, evil just lurves being evil!

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  • goldbach says:

    I would take issue with only one phrase in Mr Bowley’s comment. “A few more” is, I think, not correct. It should be “many more”.

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  • Andrew Dinkenor says:

    Keir, who I worked for, for 6 years, only knows the law and football. He is naive when it comes to politics. Has no experience as a trade union official or as a Labour Councillor. He has thrown himself in at the deep end thinking he could swim, and he is drowning.

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  • Brian Burden says:

    As to Starmer’s “patriotism”, wasn’t it Samuel Johnson who said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of the Starmer”? Well, almost.

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  • Doug says:

    No matter what the question the answer is
    RaV
    Rejoin and Vote
    In the upcoming leadership election
    Red Tories are just as ruthless and will challenge Temporary Embarrassment after May and before conference which will be put back/cancelled
    The good news is the vast majority of members are crying out for JC2, the sequel, The Wrath of Socialism

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  • Martin Read says:

    If Margaret Hodge says it’s okay it must be.

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  • George Peel says:

    For a brief moment, I thought we were going to be told what Keir Starmer’s political philosophy is. No, the moment passed, and I am, still, none the wiser.

    Does – anyone – know what his political philosophy is, or is it being kept a closely-guarded secret, to be unveiled at the most opportune time?

    Now, would appear to be that time. I can’t think of a more appropriate time.

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  • Paul Smith says:

    ‘As to Starmer’s “patriotism”, wasn’t it Samuel Johnson who said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of the Starmer”? Well, almost.’

    Thanks for making me laugh.

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  • Dave says:

    As always, Tony Greenstein reminds us that this has never been about real antisemitism, and most of the left has caved in to the false narrative. But being accused of ‘denialism’ is part of the power of this attack and once it took hold it was very much harder to counter than in the early days.

    So it’s too late now. Just like it was too late to counter the ‘Labour crashed the economy’ accusation years later although some belatedly tried. Beyond alternative outlets and maybe a few dusty history books, the past 5 years will be seen as the Labour ‘stain of antisemitism’ time, and Starmer its vanquisher, although he should be learning that it’s not going away in Labour, and note that the twitter mob is already going for the Northern Independence Party too on antisemitism.

    The Labour Party is a lost cause for the time being but it’s encouraging to see a lot of grassroots activity on the left in other directions.

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  • goldbach says:

    Mr Howard’s elaborate narrative must have taken a while to put together. Never mind, Starmer’s rating started to perform their inexorable slide when he withdrew the whip from Corbyn.
    For a more reasoned analysis I suggest it would be good to listen to Aaron Bastani on Novara Media.

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  • John Bowley says:

    I have since read the LA4J email of today about the previously unpublished definition of antisemitism which the Labour Party hierarchy has been using in its unjust disciplinary cases. Put simply, it again shows that the campaign of antisemitism complaints has been all about doing down Jeremy Corbyn and similar democratic socialists. The gross abuse of justice also suggests that that Sir Keir Starmer MP has been faking it that he is a qualified lawyer.

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  • John C says:

    Keir Starmer will never be PM of this or any country. Time to move on.

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  • Allan Howard says:

    goldbach, only this minute seen your 13.15 post (on April 7th), and as I’m sure you obviously know, I was responding to John Bowley’s assertion that Starmer and Co – because of their smearing of Jeremy – were consequently responsible for ‘the much reduced electable image of the Labour Party’, and THAT of course is why I pointed out that THAT doesn’t fit with polling results, so why do you then cite Starmer’s personal ratings? Doesn’t make sense. And John was quite clearly referring to when Jeremy was leader…..

    As for your assertion that Starmer’s personal ratings started to plummet on account of him withdrawing the whip from Jeremy Corbyn, surely any negative effect that THAT would have had on his ratings would have happened at the time and during the following week or two, and would NOT continue for the following several months:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership_approval_opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election

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