What is the point of Keir Starmer?
Rather than being a breath of fresh air, a Labour government under Starmer will be more of the same
Well, I listened to Keir Starmer’s speech on Thursday, where he set out his vision for a Labour government, should the party win this year’s election, and as usual it was hard not to drift off. In the speech he set out six pledges: deliver economic stability, cut NHS waiting times, launch a new border security command, set up Great British Energy, crackdown on antisocial behaviour, and recruit 6,500 teachers.
That all of these pledges were so unambitious that they could have been promised by Boris Johnson five years ago doesn’t seem to bother many on the Labour benches or within the party, who are desperate to get into government after 14 years of opposition. So desperate that they are willing to support an insubstantial centre-right policy platform.
Some will say that is a deliberate tactic. If Starmer presents the Labour Party as unthreatening then people will be less averse to voting it into power. In past elections, the fear of a far left or socialist Labour government has persuaded enough people to vote Conservative. In 2019, the fear of Jeremy Corbyn in Number 10 resulted in the Conservatives winning a landslide 80-seat majority. This time, however, the Conservatives will not be campaigning against Jeremy Corbyn. Instead, they’ll be facing down a remarkably un-radical Labour leader, whose party is consistently more than 20 points ahead in the polls.
This, of course, is very depressing news for Conservatives. Yet their best attack lines against Starmer will probably come in the form of criticising his past promises and presenting him as two-faced and untrustworthy. Back in 2020 when he was running for Labour leader, Starmer led a left-wing campaign where he promised to continue with much of Corbyn’s economic policy agenda. During the campaign, he said in a tweet “We must scrap the inhuman work capability assessments and private provision of disability assessments (e.g. Atos), scrap punitive sanctions, two-child limit and benefits cap.” But not long after, he said that he was “not changing” the two-child limit, despite the misery and destitution it’s inflicted on children and parents, despite the low birthrate in this rapidly ageing country.
Other policies he campaigned on in the 2020 Labour leadership contest include: scrapping tuition fees, increasing income tax for the top five per cent of earners, nationalisation of public utilities, and continued EU freedom of movement, among others.
Whether or not you like these ideas is beside the point. By cynically using them to seize control of Labour, and then scrapping them to appeal to conservative middle England, Starmer has revealed to the country that he is just another two-faced politician who can’t be trusted. If anything costs Labour the election then it will be Starmer’s cynical view of the masses, who he thinks can’t see through his Blaire tribute act.
The British people deserve better than this. They deserve better than two Oxford elitists, Sunak and Starmer, dancing on the head of a pin and arguing over who is more competent. Voters don’t want this. They want more democracy and more control over their lives. They want politicians who treat them seriously and with respect. This is what voters were crying out for in 2016 when 16.4 million of them voted to leave the EU, and it’s what voters expected when they voted for the Conservatives in 2019. Lest we forget, in 2019 Boris Johnson was calling for the Brexit vote to be respected and delivered on while Starmer was campaigning to overturn the referendum result.
Hopefully, by now you will have second thoughts about voting Labour. But for anyone still unsure, consider this; should they win are we getting a centre-right government or a left-wing one? If you can’t answer this then I wouldn’t risk it. Whether you’re a small-c conservative or someone on the Left, you’re taking a gamble either way.
Personally, I would much prefer to see a left-wing economic agenda that increases wages, productivity, and growth across the country. Yet this looks unlikely with Labour because of their incredibly poor record in government. Under New Labour, fewer council houses were built than under the Tories. Only 7,870 council houses were built over the course of Labour’s 13 years in government, significantly less than the 17,710 council homes built every year under Margret Thatcher’s government. This is not to say that we should all be voting Conservative, but it does demonstrate that Labour gave up on working-class concerns decades ago.
After 14 years of Tory government, Starmer might appear to be a breath of fresh air, the change Britain needs. Yet for myself and many others, he has not sufficiently distanced himself from the Conservatives to make that a convincing pitch.