Don’t like Keir Starmer? Just see what comes next
JOSEPH DINNAGE
Keir Starmer’s hands were shaking as he stood at the despatch box at this week’s PMQs, and who can blame him? Starmer knows the scandal over his appointment of Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to the United States could be his last as Prime Minister.
His failure to register thousands of pounds’ worth of gifts from Lord Alli was apparently tolerable. So too are the near-constant U-turns and manifesto breaches. But to employ a known associate of the world’s most notorious convicted paedophile – Jeffrey Epstein – in the nation’s most important diplomatic post may prove beyond the pale.
Having confirmed that he did indeed know that Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein had continued after the latter’s conviction in 2008, Starmer is rapidly losing friends, and his claim today that he believed that the two barely knew each other hasn’t helped.
Currently, the Prime Minister is under pressure to sack Morgan McSweeney – his Chief of Staff and a protege of Mandelson’s, who was the driving force behind the Prince of Darkness’s appointment as ambassador. Yet Labour MPs are circling like vultures, and the corpse of McSweeney looks unlikely to satisfy their appetites.
Talk of mutiny is growing, with MPs having described the events of recent days as a ‘shit show’ and Starmer’s performance at PMQs a ‘car crash’, with one openly calling for him to step down. Many are of the opinion that Starmer’s position would become untenable in the event of McSweeney’s departure, and are confident that the Prime Minister’s downfall is now a matter of ‘when’, not ‘if’.
So when Starmer’s time comes, who might succeed him, and what could this mean for those of us forced to suffer their reign?
The bookies have Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting and Ed Miliband as the most likely to take over.
If you thought the Left had too great a hearing under Starmer, then brace yourself for a Rayner administration. As Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, before she had to resign for dodging property tax, Rayner was responsible for executing Labour’s planned housebuilding revolution. The result? The Government is nowhere near close to hitting its national housing target and has given into the eco-Nimby mob and watered down its flagship Planning and Infrastructure bill. A politically canny operator she may be, but competent she is not. A self-described socialist, she would be running the economy from a position of illiteracy. This was evidenced during her time in government, having been instrumental in forcing a U-turn on the Government’s welfare bill and claiming that saddling businesses with regulation is the key to economic growth.
Of all of Labour’s front bench, Streeting has the least destructive instincts. In his struggle against the left-wing agitators in the healthcare sector, the Health Secretary has shown his mettle. Streeting has rightly accused the British Medical Association of behaving like a ‘cartel’ and exhibiting ‘juvenile delinquency’; he has also spoken frankly about the NHS, making it clear that the Left must not kid itself about the performance of our healthcare system and its need for systemic reform. But as leader, would he be able to show the same courage towards the influential die-hard socialists in his party and the trade unions, who have little interest in the trade-offs required to achieve economic growth?
Finally, there’s Miliband. Dubbed ‘Red Ed’ by the tabloids during his leadership of the Labour Party between 2010 and 2015, he has long been a stalwart of the party’s soft Left. As Energy Secretary, he is seemingly determined to ensure that Britain remains a global outlier as we continue our kamikaze-like hurtle towards decarbonisation by 2030. No matter the exorbitant cost to billpayers, regardless of how negligible our contribution to global emissions may be, Miliband has proven that he is driven by ideology, not energy security. A proponent of ‘One Nation Labour’ as party leader, he would likely return to this agenda again, presiding over yet more public spending, growth-constricting red tape on business and higher taxation.
With two out of three likely future contenders for Starmer’s spot being committed socialists, wedded to our stagnant economic status quo, the prospects for a great national revival any time soon look dim. By the time 2029 comes around, Britons will be crying out for fiscal conservatism.
Polling shows that a number of us are already there, with 62% of voters believing that too many low earners pay too much income tax, and nearly a third thinking that those on £100,000 or over are also unfairly squeezed. With net migration potentially hitting net zero later this year, we’re going to hear a lot more politicians talking about the economy, and the Tories and Reform UK will be racing to occupy that space on the Right.
Both have some way to go in proving to voters that they are serious about fixing Britain’s major economic problems. While Kemi Badenoch has made it clear that she is committed to deregulation, supply side reform and tax reductions to promote growth, the Conservatives are still falling foul of some of their worst instincts. To shore up their greying vote, the Tories continue to back the extremely expensive triple lock on state pensions, and when Labour were planning on reforming winter fuel payments to make them marginally more affordable, Badenoch’s party was quick to protest.
Despite Nigel Farage embodying all that the Left believes is evil and associates with Thatcherism, Reform’s economic programme raises questions of its own. Again, the party is adamant that in government it would lower taxes and take a light-touch approach to regulation, but some of its agenda could have been written by Michael Foot. It is widely rumoured that Farage will deliver a speech next week in which he will favour dirigisme over free markets.
In attempting to be all things to all men, Reform has forgotten one of the key lessons of Margaret Thatcher’s revolution: that a nationalised industry is an uncompetitive one. However, the party led by a man who only a year and a half ago cited Thatcher as an inspiration also wants to nationalise steel. Yet it was only by privatising British steel that the industry was able to turn a profit.
Who will win the race for economic credibility? One thing is certain: if Starmer resigns over his former ambassador’s questionable ties, the chances are that whomever takes over will be even worse. And as the public reckon with the misery of a socialist economy, the more attuned they’ll become to the realities of regulatory creep, high taxation and unaffordable public spending. Any party with the guts to stand for the opposite will be on to a winner.
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This article (Don’t like Keir Starmer? Just see what comes next) was created and published by CapX and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Joseph Dinnage
See Related Article Below
Get ready for Prime Minister Streeting
Out of all of the runners and riders, the Health Secretary is the obvious choice
A time of crisis is not the best moment to choose a new political leader.
But we don’t get to choose when those crises appear and so Labour MPs may shortly have to perform the one task that their party’s rule book has reserved for them: nominating candidates for the post of party leader.
Keir Starmer may yet escape the plight his misjudgments have created for him; his MPs may follow the pattern set by their predecessors and weigh in behind the Prime Minister, stick with him till the very end, even if it means opposition after the next election. That has been the Labour way in the past.
But this time it feels different.
At Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday Keir Starmer looked more like a badly briefed lawyer than a prime minister, and his own back benches could see for themselves the writing on the wall. Whether it’s the Mandelson affair, the expected defeat in the Gorton and Denton by-election at the end of the month, or the anticipated Labour rout at May’s local and devolved elections, it would be difficult to see how a seasoned political operator with political capital to spare, let alone Starmer, could survive for much longer.
So what, or who, comes next?
Wes Streeting, that’s who. This is less an intuitive assessment of the current state of the various cabinet runners and riders than a statement of the bleedin’ obvious. If not the Health Secretary then who? Angela Rayner? Ed Miliband? Shabana Mahmood?
It is undoubtedly true that Streeting has his weak points; the search for a candidate with no political disadvantages would be a fruitless one that need not detain us for long. He is seen as too close to the private sector, too keen on reform of the – sorry, I mean “our” – NHS and too belligerent in his dealings with unhappy striking resident doctors. And he has a background working for the discredited trans rights charity Stonewall.
And after all that he remains the best alternative to Starmer. Party members, who may be about to be given the right to choose the British prime minister for the first time in history, may reject him on the basis that he doesn’t make them feel good enough about themselves or their socialist principles, but that danger can be easily avoided by MPs agreeing among themselves not to nominate any other candidate.
Again, they may baulk at such a prospect, fearful of being labelled anti-democratic or not respecting members’ right to choose for themselves. If MPs have any sense, they’ll ignore such complaints and get on with doing what’s best for the country, not the party.
The Telegraph: continue reading
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