Keir Starmer surviving yet another revolt in the Labour Party feels less like a triumph of leadership and more like a man successfully escaping a collapsing gazebo at a garden centre sale. Technically impressive, perhaps, but nobody watching mistakes it for statesmanship. Every few months, Labour MPs gather in grim-faced clusters to declare that this, finally, is the moment they simply cannot tolerate another compromise, another U-turn, another spreadsheet disguised as a moral principle. And every few months, Starmer survives by employing the political charisma of an insurance renewal email.
The strange genius of Starmerism is that it manages to irritate every faction simultaneously while inspiring none of them enough to actually do anything decisive. The Left regard him as a sentient focus group. The centrists defend him with the enthusiasm of exhausted HR managers explaining restructuring plans. Meanwhile, the public often seem only dimly aware he exists, which in modern politics may count as tactical brilliance.
His rebellions have the energy of a school mutiny where the students keep remembering they have coursework due. MPs thunder about conscience and betrayal before quietly shuffling back through the voting lobbies, muttering that “the alternative would be worse.” Starmer survives not because he is adored, feared, or even particularly persuasive, but because Labour MPs look at one another and realise none of them wants to explain to voters why the party spent six months setting itself on fire again.
So he endures: expression fixed somewhere between mildly concerned dentist and regional bank manager announcing reduced opening hours. Every revolt leaves him weakened, yet somehow still standing, like a supermarket trolley with one broken wheel rattling determinedly across the car park. It is not glorious leadership. It is political asbestos: stubborn, joyless, and apparently impossible to remove.
Perfect summary Jude. You would think the Labour Party would regroup and use their big majority to pass new laws which benefit the working man and woman, the disabled, the marginalised. Of course they won’t. They will fight among themselves, try to out Reform the Reform party and alienate their base.
Indeed Jude, with their majority they did diddly squat – well sorry, they took away the winter fuel payment for the elderly.
Britain has become like America. They want a reality TV style leader that cares little for the poor and needy, but satisfies the social media style.
Now they get Reform – I think 2/3s of who are former Tories. But the British voters think it’s fresh.