On the eve of the general election, Keir Starmer said to the country: ‘I’ve changed the Labour Party and put it back in the service of working people. Now, I want to change Britain, to make it work once again for you and your family.’
He was feeding into a narrative fashionable among his supporters – and even hard-bitten political commentators. Starmer had wrested his party back from the grip of the Corbynites and was realigning the Labour membership with the ordinary people of Britain, we were told.
We now know that – like so many other of Sir Keir’s pre-election statements and promises – it wasn’t true. He hasn’t changed his party at all. Or if he has, he hasn’t changed it enough to trust it to decide who its new Deputy Leader should be.
Since Angela Rayner’s belated resignation, the line from Downing Street has been that the election to replace her was something of a sideshow. An inconvenient distraction from the serious business of government, one the Prime Minister would observe with only detached interest.
In truth the process has caused a meltdown within No10 as senior Starmer aides frantically rush around, working out how they can rig the contest. Or, better still, have no contest at all.
First, they attempted to buy off some of the potential challengers, such as Lisa Nandy, who had been lined up for the sack in last week’s reshuffle but was handed a last-minute reprieve as Culture Secretary. And demoted Foreign Secretary David Lammy was presented with the sinecure of Deputy Prime Minister.
Then they announced a deliberately truncated election timetable with potential contenders granted a ludicrously short window of just three days to reach the imposing threshold of 80 nominations.
Finally, they twisted the arm of Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson to run as the Keir Starmer continuity candidate – even though she had previously told friends on Friday she had no intention of submitting her name.
Of course, there is an argument that the entire exercise is nothing but a self-indulgent diversion for a party that’s supposed to be prioritising the governance of the nation. In which case, there should be no election at all.
Starmer has already said he feels no obligation to provide the victor with a position in his Cabinet. So, it would have been perfectly easy for Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee to announce the post had been abolished for the duration of Labour’s term of office.
But the Prime Minister knows that would itself have resulted in a violent backlash from party members determined to have their say.
So, instead, his advisers will spend the rest of the week pretending his manipulation of the contest is further testament to his Machiavellian party management skills. But it isn’t.
Today, Keir Starmer should be a hero to his MPs and activists. It is just over a year since he won the general election with a resounding majority of 174, ending his party’s latest 14-year trudge through the political wilderness. Posters of Che Guevara should have been ripped from walls, to be replaced with beatific images of Sir Keir pledging to deliver ‘mission-led’ government to a grateful populace.
Yet what’s the reality? He is now so weak, he’s having to press-gang his MPs into rubber-stamping his chosen deputy leadership candidate because he daren’t let Labour members choose.
Tony Blair was a self-confessed control freak. But even he allowed a contest between John Prescott and Margaret Beckett for the right to be his Deputy Leader. Gordon Brown was even more neurotic. But again, in 2007, he allowed a proper deputy leadership contest, one that featured no fewer than six candidates.
However No10 tries to spin it, Starmer’s attempt to stitch up the current election isn’t a sign of strength, but of how dramatically his authority has collapsed since his triumph last July. And whatever the result, it will come back to haunt him.
Let’s imagine his gerrymandering proves successful. At the moment Bridget Phillipson is well-liked and respected by her colleagues and Labour activists.
But if she is levered into the deputy leadership as a sitting member of the Cabinet – as Starmer’s hand-picked appointee – her hands will be bound by collective responsibility.
She will not be allowed to hint at, never mind articulate, an alternative vision or direction for the Government. Phillipson will have no option but to adopt the position of monkey to the Prime Minister’s organ grinder.
And who will that benefit, you might ask? Because this is one area where both Labour members and the country are in alignment. Both recognise that Keir Starmer is proving to be an utterly disastrous Prime Minister.
Starmer’s personal approval rating isn’t just bad by domestic comparisons.
According to a poll published yesterday by Labour’s house journal, The Guardian, it is now the worst of any western leader with the exception of Emmanuel Macron.
And after Monday’s collapse of the French government, Macron will be lucky if he survives the week without a visit to Mme Guillotine.
How, then, will it help Labour to have a leadership election that ends with the message: ‘Don’t worry. Everything will be carrying on as normal. Nothing to see here. Move along?’
Starmer was elected on a mandate of change. Yet he appears to be saying to both the country and his own party: ‘I know you’re angry at the direction I’m taking. Well, tough. I’m carrying on regardless.’ That would be a tone-deaf response in the best of circumstances.
But at a time when Labour support is collapsing on both its Left and Right flanks from the insurgent challenges of Jeremy Corbyn’s new party, the Greens and Reform, Sir Keir’s latest grim embrace of the status quo is politically myopic.
Lucy Powell and Emily Thornberry – the only two independent challengers with any chance of making the ballot – might not be everyone’s cup of tea. But at least Moss Side-born Powell – who now represents Manchester Central – has genuine roots in Labour’s crumbling Red Wall.
And Thornberry’s blunt speaking would surely prove more appealing than, as she herself identified, someone who opts to ‘just nod along’ while Labour continues its plunge into the electoral abyss.
The fact that Downing Street cannot see any of this is instructive.
Announcing his latest relaunch last week, Keir Starmer claimed he was embarking on a new phase of his premiership. In reality, he is being forced to circle the wagons. Already. The focus on internal Labour politics is indeed a distraction from serious issues such as the small-boat crisis and the war in Ukraine.
Yet Sir Keir has no choice but to look inward. Because he is only too aware of the threat he now faces from his numerous enemies within.
We were told Keir Starmer had pacified his party and moulded it in his image. His desperate attempt to rig the upcoming deputy leadership contest proves that claim was false.
The Prime Minister fears he cannot trust his own party. As he is about to find out – those fears are well grounded.
