History is littered with the political corpses of the brilliant, the vainglorious and the merely entitled who, even if they finally made it to the top of the greasy pole, found themselves slipping down it prematurely. Sir Keir Starmer is not one of those.
The prime minister came relatively late to politics and if his biographer is to be believed, his highest ambition was to be attorney general in a Labour administration. In some respects, he became a leader almost by accident after the 2019 general election debacle. There were few credible rivals and even fewer who looked likely to repair the damage left behind by Jeremy Corbyn. So Sir Keir it was to be, charisma or not.
It’s fair to say that his first months in office proved more challenging than he or most of his critics anticipated. But in recent weeks, Sir Keir has visibly grown into the role of prime minister, with foreign policy triumphs adding lustre and authority at home – where it has been badly lacking.
On the international stage, he has played a blinder and found himself the unexpected recipient of effusive tributes from otherwise grudging Tories. He has placed himself at the centre of the international effort to save Ukraine and to be the bridge between Washington and Europe that might just keep the Atlantic Alliance together, albeit less solidly than under any of President Trump’s predecessors since Franklin Roosevelt.
Although in some respects an unwelcome accolade, Sir Keir is, at the moment, the nearest thing the world has to a “Trump whisperer”, dexterously influencing the wayward, dangerous American leader towards a just and sustainable peace in Ukraine. He may not in the end succeed – President Trump is too erratic and malevolent to inspire confidence – but the British prime minister deserves the thanks of the Western world for controlling the towering inferno that is Donald Trump’s ego.
Moreover, since Mr Trump abdicated the role, Sir Keir has become the de facto leader of the free world, in a partnership with an equally resurgent Emmanuel Macron, presently hard at work constructing what Sir Keir styles “the coalition of the willing”.
But while President Macron has lost his majority in the National Assembly, and with his term of office ending in 2027, Sir Keir retains a remarkable hold on the House of Commons. Early as it is, he can contemplate completing his “decade of renewal” with a second term of office.
Sir Keir and his chancellor, Rachel Reeves, have certainly made their share of mistakes, not least the jobs tax and the tractor tax. Yet the evidence seems to be that his journey to the centre ground of British politics is still proceeding, and he is carrying his party with him.
He was, it may be recalled, elected leader in 2020 on a personal manifesto that was mildly diluted Corbynism. By the time of the general election last year, promises to hike income tax on the rich, nationalise rail, water and the Royal Mail, and keep free movement for EU workers had been quietly ditched in the interests of electability.
It takes some effort of memory to recall that Sir Keir was given a run for his money in his leadership campaign by Rebecca Long-Bailey, now an almost forgotten figure with only a tenuous hold on the Labour whip. Diane Abbott saw off the leadership’s rather brutal attempts to nudge her out before the election, but she is a symbol of the left of the party that has lost its momentum in more ways than one.
Now, securely in No 10 with no possible challenger in sight, Sir Keir and his closest advisers are steadily moving policy and messaging still further to the centre – with remarkably little resistance from his MPs or the wider party.
Not since the high tide of New Labour has the party displayed such discipline, and it stands in stark contrast to the past. Sir Keir has shrugged off successive rebellions on child benefit, the pensioners’ fuel allowance, Gaza, planning reforms, cuts in overseas aid and, most likely in the coming weeks, he will get his welfare reforms through without too much trouble from the “usual suspects”. The resignations of three ministers and one backbench MP have scarcely registered in the opinion polls.
Many close observers detect the guiding hand of Sir Keir’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, in the gradual drift to the right since the general election. (Still underpowered, however, is the No 10 communications operation, which is patchy and generally uninspiring; the prime minister has shown them how to make a mark and adapt.)
The repositioning has done their party no harm and helped it remain more closely anchored in the centre ground – without sacrificing every principle to populism. There is, for example, an unapologetically harder edge to migration policy but with an emphasis on smashing the gangs and staying inside the European Convention on Human Rights.
The boost in defence spending was inevitable, given America’s diminishing commitment to European security, but in past times it would have been unthinkable to cut overseas aid to pay for it. Once so committed to a second referendum on Brexit, Sir Keir now seems sceptical about closer economic links, regrettable as that will be to many. And it is some time since the New Green Deal was dropped on the grounds of its £28bn cost; Ed Miliband has to grin and bear it as Heathrow and the other airports are allowed to expand in the pursuit of “growth”.
The absence of dissent is also because the Labour Party of 2024 is simply a very different organism now. It is more centrist, and nowadays the more socially conservative, with “Blue Labour” factions, well represented in the rebuilt red wall, more numerous than the socialist left.
Most of his MPs also owe their seats personally to their leader. More than 250 of Labour’s 400 or so current members were elected to the Commons under Sir Keir’s leadership, either in by-elections or at the general election, a few returning after prior service – but overwhelmingly new and pragmatic. There is considerable loyalty there to call upon, as well as many ambitious backbenchers looking for their first ministerial post. The government whips haven’t been overstretched.
Sir Keir has also been lucky with his enemies to his right as well as his left. The Conservatives are becalmed and will remain so for as long as Kemi Badenoch obsesses about culture wars. Until recently, Nigel Farage was fulfilling his ambition to become “the real opposition” but, true to form, his latest vehicle is collapsing into chaos, just as Ukip did before it. The right is divided, but the centre-left is more than holding its own.
The prime minister, who was once derided by Boris Johnson as “a useless bollard”, is, in fact, the kind of careful, unshowy, intelligent and assiduous leader the country and the world need in such turbulent times.
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