Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer (Stefan Rousseau/PA)
(Picture: PA Wire)Guess the politician. This prominent MP has: said the NHS employs too many foreign workers and should have more British staff; said children shouldn’t be able to change their gender and get medical help without parents’ consent; been accused of trying to “purge” people with Left-wing views from public life.
Perhaps you’re thinking of a Tory Right-winger. In fact, the politician is Sir Keir Starmer, Labour leader and, quite probably, Britain’s next prime minister.
Because Starmer’s public persona is unspectacular and a bit boring, it’s easy to miss the fact that he is now very serious about winning and keeping power.
He has also accepted that some of the biggest obstacles to achieving that can be found in and around the Labour Party itself. Hence his willingness to say and do things that make some people on the Left unhappy.
That comment about immigration is a good example. “We’re recruiting too many people from overseas into, for example, the health service,” Starmer told BBC Scotland on Sunday. “What I would like to see is the numbers go down in some areas.”
To some advocates of liberal immigration policy, this misjudges public opinion: foreign-born NHS staff are arguably the most popular group of immigrants in Britain, a country that is on average becoming ever-more relaxed about immigration. But Starmer isn’t pitching to liberals or even to the average voter. He’s targeting voters in the swing seats that decided the 2019 general election, seats Labour must win back to have any hope of a majority after the next election. The evidence suggests those voters are more concerned about immigration than people elsewhere. So Starmer and his shadow Home Office team are determined to ensure Labour cannot be depicted by Tory spinners as the party of open borders.
A similar logic explains Starmer’s answers about trans issues in a recent chat with Mumsnet. Asked about the impact of self-identification policies on female-only spaces such as changing rooms and toilets, Starmer said women must not be dismissed as bigotted for raising such concerns. Asked about medical treatment for gender-variant children, he insisted on a parental veto.
Cue fury on Left-wing Twitter. The campaigning lawyer Jolyon Maugham compared Starmer to the anti-abortion Right. None of this will worry Starmer, who just wants to defuse the trans issue and ensure the Tories can’t explode it during an election campaign.
That campaign will be fought by a significant number of Labour candidates cast in Starmer’s image. The Labour leadership is quietly squeezing Left-wing fans of Jeremy Corbyn out of winnable seats. So Emma Dent Coad has been blocked from standing again in Kensington and Maurice Mcleod barred in Peckham, both because they lean too far to the Left.
Even sitting MPs can be ousted: Sam Tarry, currently the MP for Ilford South, won’t be Labour’s candidate next time. Apsana Begum in Poplar and Limehouse may suffer the same fate. Because it has been slow, steady and unspectacular, Starmer’s journey towards the centre-ground has so far gone unnoticed by many voters. But people in politics are paying close attention. Two groups are especially unhappy about it.
First, the Labour Left. Some Corbynites lament a Blairite resurrection at the top of Labour — as if emulating a man who won three general elections is a sin. In truth, Starmer’s methods owe more to Gordon Brown, a political tortoise who always paid much more attention to the party machinery than the hare-like Tony Blair.
The second group Starmer is upsetting is Conservative election planners. Right now, one of Tory HQ’s main attack lines on Starmer is that he’s a closet Leftie who wanted Corbyn to be PM. A weak attack to start with, it becomes weaker still with every angry Left-wing tweet about Starmer’s betrayals. This is the source of Starmer’s readiness to offend the noisy online Left; he’s playing to a different, bigger and more important audience. That audience can give him an election victory at the head of a party made up of loyal MPs.
Any PM needs loyal parliamentary troops, but that’s especially true during difficult times — and governing Britain after the next election will be a real challenge, since the economy will still be struggling and the public finances will still be in a mess. If his steady march to the centreground succeeds and he makes it to No 10, Prime Minister Starmer will need all the friends he can get.
