Power is draining away from Starmer’s Downing Street
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If the British prime minister is brought down over the Mandelson affair it will be ironic, because it’s the least of his mistakes. The real charge sheet against Sir Keir Starmer is that he has savaged confidence, crippled business, and failed on his “change” manifesto pledges of restoring hope, kick-starting economic growth and building homes. Relentlessly sanctimonious, he didn’t do his homework in opposition and has now plunged his party into exactly the kind of chaos it was elected to stop.
It’s the cover-up, of course. All Starmer had to do was explain that the arrival of an unconventional US president made it worth appointing Peter Mandelson ambassador to DC: an experienced politician and businessman who had also been an EU trade commissioner. Everyone knew the risks, if not the full extent of his links to Epstein. But Starmer has never quite been able to bring himself to take full responsibility. He has mouthed an apology and then scapegoated others.
Power is draining away from Downing Street. But in truth, Starmer has been in office but not in power ever since he failed to get his limited welfare cuts through parliament last summer. His landslide majority sits mutinous, unmoored, in the Palace of Westminster. Labour MPs have not yet moved against him, split over who his successor should be and acutely aware of how much the public loathe leadership chaos. But Starmer is not well liked: he makes no secret of his disdain for politics as a grubby business, hence Downing Street’s failure to land the welfare reforms. Loyalty has worn thin because of his almost obstinate lack of interest in making the difficult decisions that his job requires.
The British system doesn’t function properly without an active, engaged prime minister who can articulate a vision and drive it through Whitehall. Rightly or wrongly, our system looks to the top to resolve trade-offs. The most intractable problems, the ones that no one else has solved, land on the prime minister’s desk — every day. Ed Miliband and Wes Streeting, two ministers who did serious preparatory work in opposition, have got on and delivered: Miliband has announced a slew of clean energy projects and Streeting has challenged vested interests, reducing hospital waiting lists despite doctor strikes. But most of the system has drifted.
In that sense the Starmer regime has come to feel bizarrely similar to that of Boris Johnson: for different reasons, there is a vacuum where the principal should be. Passing planning reforms, for example, doesn’t magic up houses: that requires lifting the regulatory burden from the construction industry, tackling rising costs, reducing the requirements on affordable homes. But none of that is happening.
Britain is in a geopolitical crisis. Consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest level since the “winter of discontent” in 1978. Gilt yields hit their highest since 2008. Relations with the US are also in a parlous state. At the very least, the UK needs a leader who can communicate with the public and deliver the manifesto on which Labour was elected. It’s not certain, though, that we will get one.
The verdict of Labour MPs will rest to a large extent on who they think is the bigger threat to their own survival: Nigel Farage or Zack Polanski. If Reform and the Conservatives do well in the local elections on May 7, some will argue for sticking with policies unpopular in the Labour Party but popular in the country, such as the home secretary’s attempts to curb immigration. If the Greens make big inroads, there will be calls for a move to the radical left. Some Labourites who went through the fire to support Starmer’s vanquishing of the antisemitic Corbynite left are in despair at the emergence of new Corbynistas in the form of the Greens.
What happens after May 7 will depend partly on whether the party decides to wait for Andy Burnham to mount his charger and ride down from Greater Manchester to save the day. Burnham is the most popular candidate with both the public and the parliamentary party (though some dislike his plans for electoral reform). But he’s not an MP. Labour’s national executive committee, which blocked him from standing in a by-election in January, may swing his way this year but there’s no guarantee.
Can Starmer cling on that long? The drip-drip of Mandelson-related news makes it unlikely. A substantial pay-off to sacked Foreign Office head Olly Robbins will have to be negotiated. On Tuesday, Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s former chief of staff, will give evidence to the foreign affairs select committee. It will be hard to focus on anything else.
If things move faster, the party’s choice may come down to Angela Rayner or Wes Streeting (or possibly Ed Miliband if he decided to stand). Streeting is intelligent and charismatic, and capable of tough decisions, but is less well known to voters. Rayner is popular in the party but still under investigation over her tax affairs. She ushered in the government’s two flagship pieces of legislation, the Employment Rights Act and the Renters’ Rights Act. Some MPs emphasise the well-meaning help that these have provided for the vulnerable; others are waking up to the self-defeating over-regulation they contain.
Labour MPs want a coronation not a contest. Rumours of a Streeting-Rayner pact seem far-fetched: aides say it hasn’t been discussed. But a Burnham-Rayner deal is plausible. The biggest risk is that Starmer implodes before a succession plan is in place. In the national interest, we can only hope the party remembers that Labour has only ever won elections from the centre ground.
