Why Keir Starmer is defiant – and what happens next

‘Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.’

It is perhaps fitting that for football fanatic Keir Starmer, he’s effectively challenged his rivals in the manner one might hear on the terraces at any given weekend around the country. 

It is doubly fitting that for this most lawyerly of lawyers, long criticised for obsessing over details over delivery, for prioritising rules over rhetoric, has chosen to hide behind the brick wall of process. 

That word has, arguably, been the watchword of the Starmer leadership of the Labour Party, for better and worse. 

It was because of the processes of leadership that the Prime Minister felt forced to tack left in the contest to succeed Jeremy Corbyn, only to move to the right to secure the keys to Number 10. 

It is those same party processes that allowed him to distance himself from Corbyn and ultimately expel him from the party, and secure the iron grip on Labour’s governance that is ensuring that, for now, he is safe. 

Or at least as safe as any Prime Minister can be with, at time of writing, 81 of his own MPs calling for him to step down. 

That 81 number is significant, and a large part of the reason why Starmer feels that he is able to be defiant. 

A man who once billed himself as ‘Mr Rules’ in contrast to the chaos of Boris Johnson, is, as he made clear at Cabinet today, there is a process to remove him, and that process has not yet been met. 

Because while 81 has been billed as the magic number to trigger a leadership contest, that only applies if all of those MPs back the same candidate. 

For now, those names, from junior Minister Miatta Fahnbulleh (the most senior so far to resign) all the way down to the various backbenchers who required Googling even by hardened political journalists, are as disparate as they are numerous. 

They come from all wings of the party, from old left to new right tradition, from Starmerite apparatchiks to socialists with decades of service, and are yet to coalesce around a single challenger to Starmer. 

And with bitterness and accusations flying right through the parliamentary party, there seems virtually no chance they will. 

Because while Starmer has clearly reckoned that the various pretenders to his crown, while divided, will fall, noises from within the government show that this challenge, and much of the Prime Minister’s ire, is directed at one man – Wes Streeting. 

The Health Secretary, never shy about his long-term ambition to become Prime Minister, famously claimed last year that, with The Traitors on TV, there was no-one more ‘faithful’ to Keir Starmer. 

Since the local elections disaster, however, while Streeting has yet to speak out directly on Starmer’s future, there is little doubt that he is willing to stand in an expected leadership election. 

The Health Secretary’s allies have always briefed Streeting would never challenge the Prime Minister directly (more likely as a result of his belief that ‘he who wields the knife never wears the crown’ rather than any genuine loyalty) and it is with this in mind that Keir Starmer laid down the gauntlet today. 

While fingers are being pointed in all directions by the Prime Minister’s team, it is Streeting who is seen as being responsible for the boldest betrayal, shortly followed by Shabana Mahmood, who openly told Starmer to resign last night. 

So-called soft-left MPs, thought to mostly favour Andy Burnham, are said to be furious at what they see as a coordinated push by Streeting to trigger the downfall of the Prime Minister as things went from mild to febrile over the course of Monday. 

Bloomberg reported that a number of anti-Streeting MPs pointed out that a number of those calling for the PM to go were his allies, while others drew attention to the fact that PPS resignations were coming at almost exactly 10 minute intervals. 

It was also hardly subtle that a number of those seen as close to Streeting called for the Prime Minister to set out a ‘swift’ timetable for his departure, in contrast with pro-Burnham voices largely calling for an ‘orderly’ departure. 

That’s because a short contest naturally favours Streeting (not least because it helps him avoid the votes of a sceptical Labour membership) while a long campaign helps Burnham, who is still yet to find a clear route back to parliament.

Starmer’s ‘put up and shut up’ is being interpreted as showing he favours the latter process, and the latter candidate. 

While it’s true that the Prime Minister’s supporters don’t have the same anger towards the Greater Manchester Mayor than they do towards the Health Secretary, it seems to be another example of Starmer’s strategy being a combination of ‘divide and conquer’ and his old favourite, using process as a shield. 

Put simply, while Burnham remains out of parliament, he can’t challenge Starmer. 

While Streeting remains reluctant to go over the top, he can’t challenge Starmer. 

And with that stalemate, the Prime Minister believes, despite the groundswell of public and party opinion suggesting otherwise, that he can fight on. 

He’s told his cabinet to come and have a go. 

Let’s see if they do. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

Comments


Add as preferred source