Keir Starmer: A heart with one purpose alone
TAKING NOTHING FOR GRANTED: Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. Picture credit: The Labour Party
Labour leader Keir Starmer is clearing the decks for a General Election, and trying to ensure it will not be fought over the same ground as the last, writes Simon Bristow
It’s been disappointing to see some pro-Europeans declare themselves politically homeless this week after Sir Keir Starmer ruled out a return to freedom of movement between Britain and the EU.
I understand it’s a dearly held point of principle for many, and that his remarks caused some dismay.
But the Labour leader had sound reasons to say what he did, and in the acute crises this country now finds itself, there’s a bigger political picture in which he must now place himself - the countdown to a General Election.
Right now the most urgent challenges facing the UK are collapsing public services, including in transport, the criminal justice system and housing, perennial crisis in our NHS and social care, and a cost of living crisis so deep that lecturers and nurses are having to use food banks.
Just on Friday the BBC reported how an 85-year-old woman in Cornwall waited 14 hours for an ambulance after a fall, a further 26 hours waiting to get into A&E, and then a wait of “many hours” before surgery. In October The Hull Story reported how Hull’s hospitals trust had 190 patients ready to be discharged but could not be because of a lack of appropriate residential or home care.
After 12 years of Conservative government there really is no one else to blame. Putin’s war in Ukraine has exacerbated some of these problems, such as on energy and food prices, but they nearly all pre-date Russia’s invasion in February this year.
So what Britain desperately needs is a change of government, a change to a fairer, more equitable society, and new leadership that has the ability to restore trust in our politics. Starmer’s Labour can deliver that, and realistically is the only party in a position to do so.
Unless there is a big shock, unless voters choose to continue along the path of the social and financial hardship they are now experiencing, two years from now the UK will finally be rid of one of the most incompetent and selfish governments in history.
The likelihood, at the moment, is that Starmer will be our next Prime Minister. But as the Labour leader anxiously keeps reminding his MPs and staff in the face of encouraging opinion polls; no vote can be taken for granted, no outcome is assured.
That is why Starmer said what he did so definitively last weekend, describing freedom of movement as a “red line” which Labour in government would not cross. We can’t know whether he really feels so strongly about that, whether it’s a natural impulse for him personally. But the truth is it doesn’t matter. Freedom of movement wasn’t the issue. Brexit was.
What Starmer has done is merely acknowledge a political reality, that relitigating the Brexit arguments now would prove extremely risky if not disastrous for Labour, and therefore the country. Starmer has one job now upon which he must be relentlessly focused, and that is to win the next General Election. All the evidence so far shows he is on course to succeed in that task.
He strengthens his party’s chances if he removes the one issue that would open up the only really effective line of attack the Tories, and their cheerleaders in the right-wing Press, might have on Labour. Because Brexit was undoubtedly the single biggest issue that cost Labour the last election.
Remove Brexit and the debate is all about the Conservatives’ record and what Labour can offer as an alternative. And therein, arguably, also lies hope for those who voted remain in 2016, and for the leavers who have since changed their minds. Time and opinion polls appear to be on their side, with support for Brexit at an all time low.
One thing is certain, there can be no easing of the straitjacket under this brand of Conservatism. The hardliners won’t allow it, and current PM Rishi Sunak is too politically weak to take them on, even if he wanted to.
If Starmer wins, expect pragmatism to replace extremism, and that surely creates the space for a more mature and reasoned response to the challenges the country faces, including our relationship with the EU.
Any sensible and honest appraisal of the last six years shows that Brexit has been an epic act of self-harm both politically and economically for the UK. It will not be immediate, and it may not be in the next Parliament, but closer realignment with the EU, if not renewed membership, is one of the most obvious means of relieving the economic mess Britain is now in. But that is an issue for another day.
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First and foremost is the domestic change that is now so urgently needed. If Sunak can hang on he will, grimly, for the full term the law allows, albeit without a mandate from the country.
But when that election comes, Starmer and Labour will need every vote they can muster after what could be 14 years in the wilderness.
Disaffected supporters who take issue with Starmer for reasons other than Brexit may also want to consider another hard political reality. As Sir Tony Blair has recently pointed out, to win and return to office Labour must secure the backing of people who voted Conservative at the last election. That requires the careful building of a broad coalition.
It was not Starmer’s fault there was a Brexit referendum, or that remain lost. But it will be his job to fix the problems he inherits if he becomes Prime Minister. They are piling up by the day. The remainers who say they cannot vote for him now might want to consider the alternative, and that means more of the same; deepening austerity, economic mismanagement, the wilful neglect of the NHS and social care, a discredited honours system, and the further erosion of standards in public life.
Brexit will not go away, but Britain cannot afford another election dominated by it.