Nevertheless, he persisted: why there’s still plenty for Keir to cheer about
What Labour can learn from Labor
Forgive me an excursion into political punditry. Arguably, the commentariat is already sufficiently populous. But there is always the risk of stagnation. In the spirit of abundance (hopefully Ezra Klein approves), it’s time to weigh in.
A tale of two Prime Ministers
The UK Greens’ upset win in a by-election held in Manchester on Thursday is causing angst for Keir Starmer’s Labour government. It’s true that losing a previously extremely safe Labour seat isn’t great. Nor is the fact that Labour’s national vote share is currently sitting on 18% according to YouGov’s tracker, barely half of the 34% they recorded at the 2024 general election, and behind Nigel Farage’s Reform on 24% (vs 14% in 2024). Reflecting an increasingly fragmented landscape, the Conservatives are also on 18% (vs 24% in 2024), the Greens 17% (vs 7% in 2024) and the Lib Dems 14% (vs 12% in 2024). Clearly, the two party system is breaking down.
Critics of Keir Starmer, including Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, have argued that he should be replaced as leader, even if not immediately (apparently ‘the kindling is wet’). Call me old-fashioned, but deposing an elected head of state on the basis of a mid-term polling wobble doesn’t sit right with me. Moreover, the last couple of decades in Australian politics illustrates why this path is fraught with danger. Following a historic victory under Kevin Rudd in 2007, a series of internal coups (first switching to Julia Gillard, then back to Rudd again) led Labor to a rapid electoral nosedive and ultimately three terms in opposition from 2013 to 2022. The evocatively-titled documentary The Killing Season captures Labor’s self-directed rancour during this period. Remarkably, the Liberal Party then fell prey to the same bloodlust, shuffling between three Prime Ministers (Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison) during the ensuing years. Meanwhile, Labor finally got its act together under the mantra ‘disunity is death’ and won power again in 2022 under Anthony Albanese.
In the lead-up to the 2025 election, Australian Labor found itself in a position which in some respects resembled UK Labour now. Trailing in the polls, many commentators had written Labor off. Pressure was mounting on Albanese, who was accused of leading a lacklustre, do-nothing government. But with scars from previous bouts of infighting still fresh, the caucus kept their heads and stuck behind their leader. In the end, Labor won a whopping 63% of seats, its most ever (converting its 35% vote share very efficiently, much like UK Labour in 2024). Now, as the Liberal Party faces the worst existential crisis in its history, Labor’s biggest problem is grappling with its new identity as the ‘natural party of government’. Tough times indeed.
UK Labour’s sunlit uplands
Unlikely as it may currently seem, Labour under Starmer is in an extremely strong position to win the next general election and indeed, much like Australian Labor, become the UK’s ‘natural party of government’. We are in all likelihood only at the beginning of a lengthy golden era of Labour rule, in which Labour becomes the chief beneficiary of the multi-party fragmentation occurring in British politics. There are a few reasons for this.
First, the credible threat of Nigel Farage becoming Prime Minister will supercharge tactical voting on the left, allowing Labour to convert mediocre polling numbers into a large number of seats. Something similar occurred at the 2024 general election (with an unpopular Conservative party rather than Farage as the main opponent), in which tactical voting enabled Labour to very efficiently convert a 34% vote share into 63% of seats. Emmanuel Macron famously defeated Marine Le Pen through a similar ‘cordon sanitaire’ strategy in the 2017 and 2022 French elections. As the Greens victory this week showed, tactical voting won’t go Labour’s way in every seat. But as the only credible party of government on the left (to my knowledge, no Green party has ever led a national government), Labour is likely to be a significant net beneficiary of tactical voting overall. A solid win with a smattering of seat losses to smaller left parties would be far from catastrophic.
Second, it is unlikely that tactical voting on the right will be as efficient. Nigel Farage will argue that based on polling, Reform is more likely than the Conservatives to defeat Labour. However, I suspect that Reform will struggle to attract a high enough share of Conservative voters to win the election. As a relatively new ‘challenger’ party, Reform will have difficulty arguing that tactical voting should flow from the Conservatives to them, rather than the other way around – a phenomenon which has historically led Farage’s parties to underperform on seat counts relative to vote share. Furthermore, many mainstream Conservatives will not vote for Farage on principle – in fact, they would rather he lost. Meanwhile, the Conservatives appear to have no credible path to government given their weak performance in 2024 and the subsequent widespread desertion of their voter base to Reform. Even if Labour loses some seats directly to Reform, the schism occurring on the right is likely to work in its interests overall.
Third, Labour’s internal troubles may now be less of a worry than at any point in recent history. Jeremy Corbyn and his allies have been purged; also out is the lead purger, Starmer’s former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney. The civil war of the left and right may finally be over. Andy Burnham is not yet an MP (Starmer blocked his preselection for this week’s by-election) – there is now plenty of time to get him in as a candidate at the next general election and then appoint him to cabinet, turning him into an asset (and perhaps Prime Minister sometime in the 2030s) rather than a threat. Angela Rayner is conveniently sidelined due to a legal technicality over a house purchase. Thus Starmer finds himself with no obviously more popular challenger. Intelligent policy can help to shore up the fragile detente. Rather than making things up on the run to address the threat of Reform (the proposed changes to immigration settlement rules reek of this), Starmer should now focus on policies that deliver tangible material benefits to ordinary people.
Fourth, the external environment remains extremely favourable to Labour. Donald Trump’s unpopularity outside the US has helped to shore up the centre-left in Canada and Australia; UK Labour should also benefit. Taking a longer term view, key segments of Labour’s voter base – city-dwellers, university graduates, workers in care professions, and ethnic minorities – are growing as a percentage of the whole electorate. Labour has a long-term demographic tailwind behind it.
Given these factors and the hefty size of Labour’s electoral majority, there is every chance that Starmer is re-elected as Prime Minister next time around. So cheer up Keir. Winter’s over and the daffodils are out. It might be time to crack a smile.