Beyond Help

Ben Wildsmith

Keir Starmer’s speech to conference this week was widely praised by the centrist commentariat in the London press. He was, we were told, taking the fight to Nigel Farage at last and standing up for progressive principles.

The problem for Labour, however, is no matter how many shifts of emphasis, relaunches, and reshuffles the Prime Minister is bounced into performing by his backroom staff, he remains Keir Starmer, and the public doesn’t like nor trust him.

Labour’s polling bounce from their conference was a measly 2%. This is a poor figure viewed on its own, given the coverage that a conference generates, but viewed in light of Reform UK’s own 2% gain this week, it’s disastrous.

Racist-adjacent

Reform, and Farage in particular, were so ubiquitous at the Labour gathering as to suggest that the party of government, with its thumping mandate, is no longer setting the political weather even for itself. Ministers vied to portray Farage as either racist, racist-adjacent, or in the case of Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, ‘worse’ than racist.

Now, this is a line of attack that has some merit. Plenty that Reform figures have said or done can be characterised as racist to voters who care about that. The time to do it, however, has long passed.

Since before the election, Starmer’s party has painfully legitimatised Reform UK’s talking points, seemingly terrified of alienating voters who respond to them. Had Starmer, from the first, refused to have any truck with the hyping of concerns about immigration, he could have used the authority of his position to set the tone of the debate.

Instead, he’s seeking to be a hunt saboteur whilst wearing a red jacket and giving the impression he changed his mind because somebody beat him to the fox.

Union flags

Union flags were everywhere, of course, serving no purpose but to underline the party’s superficiality.

Having rushed out ID Card plans under the ‘Brit Card’ moniker suggested by a thinktank, the party left Eluned Morgan to twist in the wind, yet again, and limply suggest ddraig goch branding for the version we’re issued here.

ID cards exemplify how Starmer has become a gift for Labour’s opponents. Whilst there are a host of ideological reasons, both left and right, for opposing their introduction, as a tool to monitor and control immigration they would clearly be of use.

A leader with any public credibility could have sold the policy as a practical and sadly necessary step that stood in contrast to the empty rhetoric offered by Farage. Because it was Starmer, however, much of the public smelled a rat. Those on the left, enraged by the arrests of protestors, suspected it would be used to track political dissent, whilst the right fell back on their traditional concerns about personal liberty.

Compromises

Starmer is a politician without a constituency. His compromises have repelled Labour support whilst attracting nobody from the right. The sense that he is being issued with principles to sell by people who have none except their own career goals is palpable across the political spectrum.

Next month’s budget will, it seems, finally see Rachel Reeves reverse the two-child cap on benefits. That is a headline change that, under a new leader, would make the electorate sit up and take notice. It will bring no benefits to Labour under the current leadership, however, because, like winter fuel payments, Palestine, and cuts to PIP, we know they have been dragged kicking and screaming towards the change having lacked the principle or instinct to reject it before.

Labour is now unable to change course credibly because nobody trusts the man at the wheel. If he stays, the coming rout in May’s elections will be UK-wide and quite possibly final.