A Left-wing splinter revolt was brewing. If only Starmer had been nice
The proximate issue is politics, but the subtext is character. The rise of a non-Labour Left was spurred by Gaza, by No10's failure to cook up a formula that would satisfy Jewish and Muslim voters, and has been turbo-charged by its attempt to raise defence spending on the back of benefits cuts.
Sultana is acknowledged in Parliament as a passionate voice for Palestinians (also, transy, woo-woo, married to a windfarm yada). Corbyn is defined in many people's minds as an anti-war militant. The tough job ahead of them is to knit together foreign and domestic concerns, to ally Muslims, poor whites and the intelligentsia around an economic programme. In short, to rebuild the historic Labour coalition outside of the Labour Party. Start-up parties in Spain or Greece have followed a similar path, and they benefited from the moral rot of historic centre-Left parties plus the unpopularity of austerity.
The spotlight thus falls back on Rachel Reeves. By insisting on her fiscal rules, which means limited borrowing plus no rise in direct taxes, she has compelled her party either to savage growth through indirect taxes or to permanently seek cuts to welfare, savaging their constituents. In short, Left-wing Labour MPs can see that their ambitions – redistribution and equality – will never get an airing within this Parliament, under this neo-Blairite leadership.
In which case, what's the point of keeping the whip? It's been removed from them often-enough. Sultana is already whipless, suspended for opposing the two-child benefit cap.
By forcing the Left out so brutally in 2019-2020, Starmer gained control of the party at the expense of its ideals and its base. No one had gone quite so scorched-earth before. Wilson, Callaghan, even Blair to a lesser extent worked on the assumption that if you unite as much of the Labour family as possible, you can win the country – and thus Blair tolerated the soft-Left (Gordon Brown) and hard-Left (Michael Meacher) within his government.
Starmer permitted no such compromise, and now he pays the price. He vindictively drove Corbyn out of the party – the man who won far more votes than Keir, in 2017 – deprived the Left of advancement, and made sidelining them part of his triangulation strategy. His defeat in the welfare Bill was a psychological turning-point. The parliamentary Left realised they are bigger than their own Prime Minister, with their own supporters and crusades, freeing them to imagine a future without him.
Brexit and Reform have revolutionised British politics, proving that you don't have to peddle orthodoxy to win, or run in one of the two big parties to enter the Commons. A Left-wing splinter revolt was brewing for some time and, to be honest, journalism has not taken its demographic seriously enough (we were too busy chasing Nigel and his C2s around the highstreet). But if Tories can walk away from their party without fear, it was only a matter of time before socialists or greenies or peaceniks did the same, splitting the centre-Left vote and, very probably, making a Reform administration more likely.
Farage must be a very happy man. The more parties there are on the ballot, the further first-past-the-post crumbles.
If only Keir Starmer had been nice. If only he had kept Corbyn in the party, better balanced his Cabinet, been more collegial, less sanctimonious, less cynical on Gaza, less pro-Trump, less primed to drool with lust when surveying the latest US bomber in his Lockheed catalogue. I can, off the top of my head, name a dozen Labour MPs more likely to join Corbyn/Sultana because Starmer has made life in their own party personally unpleasant and ethically compromised. I say: do it.
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Glasgow Times
28 minutes ago
- Glasgow Times
Reeves says welfare fallout ‘damaging' and declines to rule out tax hikes
The Chancellor warned there would be 'costs to what happened', as she faced questions about how she would cover a shortfall left by the Downing Street climbdown on planned cuts to disability benefits. The Government saw off the threat of a major Commons defeat over the legislation on Tuesday, after shelving plans to restrict eligibility for the personal independence payment (Pip) in the face of a backbench revolt. Rachel Reeves said she had never considered resigning as Chancellor (Jack Hill/The Times/PA) The original welfare proposals had been part of a package that ministers expected would save up to £5 billion a year, with economists warning that tax rises are now likely to plug a gap left by the concessions to rebels. The fallout threatens to cause lasting damage to morale in Labour ranks, with some MPs calling for a reset in relations between the parliamentary party and the leadership before fractures widen. Images of the Chancellor crying in the Commons on Wednesday also spooked the financial markets and led to questions about her future, though a Treasury spokesman said the tears were the result of a personal matter and Downing Street said she would remain in post. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Ms Reeves said she had never considered resigning, adding: 'I didn't work that hard to then quit.' She said she had gone to Prime Minister's Questions because she 'thought that was the right thing to do' but that 'in retrospect, I probably wished I hadn't gone in… (on) a tough day in the office'. Ms Reeves added: 'It's been damaging. 'I'm not going to deny that, but I think where we are now, with a review led by (disability minister) Stephen Timms, who is obviously incredibly respected and has a huge amount of experience, that's the route we're taking now.' Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the Government is still committed to welfare reform, but ministers will now wait for the conclusions of the Timms review before implementing changes to Pip.
Daily Mail
38 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
I'm a 'hard enough b*****d' to lead the country... despite collapsing under pressure to own MPs over benefit cuts
Keir Starmer has insisted he is a 'hard-enough bastard' to lead the country – despite capitulating to his own MPs over benefit cuts. In a bizarre aside, the Prime Minister pushed back against suggestions that recent U-turns have wrecked his political authority. Asked whether he was tough enough to drive through change following a series of reverses, he told the BBC 's Political Thinking podcast that he was 'proud' of his record in government. 'We need to reflect on where things have not gone according to plan, and the Welfare Bill was one of them,' he said. 'But we also need to emphasise the very many good things we have done.' The Arsenal fan denied that he had 'lost the [Labour] dressing room'. And when podcast host Nick Robinson revealed that a former football team-mate had described Sir Keir as a 'hard bastard', the PM responded: 'I'm a hard-enough bastard to find out who said that so I can have a discussion with them.' His comments echoed Ed Miliband's much-mocked bravado in 2015 when he responded to questions about his suitability for power by declaring: 'Hell, yes, I'm tough enough.' Downing Street declined to comment further on Sir Keir's words yesterday, but insisted the PM was not a 'pushover' despite caving in to pressure to make huge U-turns on welfare cuts, the winter fuel payment and grooming gangs in recent weeks. Sir Keir did acknowledge an array of blunders, saying caving into Labour rebels on welfare was a 'tough day' and that he regretted a speech warning that uncontrolled immigration could turn Britain into an 'island of strangers'. The PM tried to make a virtue out of U-turns on issues such as the national inquiry into grooming gangs, arguing it was 'common sense' to 'look again' when doubts were raised. 'I'm not one of these ideological thinkers, where ideology dictates what I do,' said. 'I'm a pragmatist. You can badge these things as U-turns – it's common sense to me. If someone says to me, 'here's some more information and I really think it's the right thing to do', I'm the kind of person that says, 'well, in which case, let's do it'.' In a message to Labour MPs, Sir Keir said the Government needed to 'emphasise the many good things we have done'. 'We're only just starting. This in a sense is the toughest year, so we're only just beginning,' he said, adding that he did not 'pretend' that the Labour revolt this week which forced him to neuter his benefit curbs was not a 'tough day'. 'I take responsibility,' he said. 'We didn't get the process right.' But he insisted the Government had 'done some fantastic things' and 'driven through so much change'. The PM said that included bringing down waiting lists in the NHS, as well as 'loads of improvements in schools and stuff that we can do for children'. Sir Keir went on: 'Whether that's rolling out school uniform projects, whether it's school meals, breakfast clubs, you name it – and also [bringing in] a huge amount of investment into the country. 'And of course we've been busy getting three trade deals.' When our political leaders try to 'talk tough' 'Am I tough enough? Hell, yes, I'm tough enough.' Ed Miliband, March 2015, on whether he was tough enough to be PM. 'You worked so hard, you didn't feel you'd drunk ten pints by four o'clock, you used to sweat so much.' William Hague, August 2000, boasting he drank 14 pints a day as a teenage delivery worker. 'I am a fighter, not a quitter.' Liz Truss, October 22, the day before she resigned as Prime Minister. 'I have to confess, when me and my friend, sort of, used to run through the fields of wheat – the farmers weren't too pleased about that.' Theresa May, June 2017, on the naughtiest thing she had done.
Daily Mail
38 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Hard man fantasy of a PM losing control
Mad Frankie Fraser, Iron Mike Tyson, Ronnie and Reggie Kray. To this list of notorious tough guys, we must now add Keir Starmer – a streetfighter straight outta Reigate. The genteel Surrey suburbs might not seem a natural breeding ground for bruisers, but friends say the PM's upbringing belies the inner beast. 'He's a hard bastard,' they tell the BBC 's Nick Robinson. Sir Keir humbly agrees. 'A hard enough bastard,' he says. Really? Is he even the hardest member of Cabinet? It would be a brave punter who backed him over three rounds against Angela Rayner, or indeed in an alley fight with his gimlet-eyed enforcer Pat McFadden. All this nonsense is, of course, designed to make Sir Keir out to be a strong and macho leader. In truth, it makes him look silly and desperate. On his first anniversary in power, he appears weaker and more out of touch than ever. A survey this week shows one in three people who voted Labour 12 months ago now regret it. The big surprise is that it's only one in three. The backbench rebellion which shredded his welfare reforms and had his Chancellor sobbing in the Commons was his greatest humiliation. But there have been many other errors, U-turns and betrayals of his manifesto promises. No one voted for a £40 billion tax raid, the scrapping of winter fuel allowance, releasing thousands of dangerous prisoners early or the outrageous surrender of the Chagos Islands. His boast that he would 'smash the gangs' trafficking migrants across the Channel has been an ignominious failure, the growth he promised has flatlined and borrowing has soared. The only people to have really benefited from Starmer's first year are the public-sector unions, whose members have received bumper pay rises and a new workers' charter, which places a raft of stifling obligations on hard-pressed employers. And what are the omens for Sir Keir's second year (assuming he survives it)? For anyone with savings, property, a pension fund, a small business, it threatens to be far worse than his first. He has lost control of his parliamentary party and with it any chance of cutting back the ballooning state. Indeed, his newly empowered MPs, most of whom have never had a job outside politics, charities or the public sector, are likely to demand even higher public spending. For example, they will no doubt push for lifting the two-child benefit cap, which would be a huge payday for those with large families but cost upwards of £3.5 billion – more money we don't have. The only way to pay for this ever-growing financial black hole is for our lame-duck Chancellor to raise yet more tax. As usual, the burden will fall on the hard-pressed families of middle Britain. It would be a betrayal of Labour's central manifesto promise but, as we have learned in this year, Sir Keir is not a man of principle. He may think of himself as a hard man, but he's deluding himself. Every time there has been a genuinely tough decision to be made – on welfare, the grooming gangs inquiry, winter fuel allowance and much else – he's buckled. His fellow tough guy Mike Tyson famously said: 'Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.' This is effectively what's happened to Sir Keir. If he ever had a plan, it's in tatters. And the country will pay the price.
