I am not recounting what happened in the Commons yesterday here. The mainstream media exists to do that, and they might on this occasion do what we expect of them, so bad was Starmer's performance.
What do we know now that we did not is that:
- Starmer knew how flawed Mandelson was, and appointed him anyway.
- Starmer can no longer command the Commons.
- Starmer looked terrified of or by the situation that he is in
- Starmer's judgment, even in managing yesterday's parliamentary debate, which should have been straightforward but descended into chaos, appears completely flawed.
- His only defence for what he did is that Morgan McSweeney persuaded him to appoint Mandelson, but no one is persuaded by that: he appointed McSweeney, and so questions about his judgement remain.
- McSweeney's departure will not save Starmer: that was clear from commentary in the Commons last night.
- Starmer is now on borrowed time: he cannot survive this. Whatever credibility he had is gone and cannot be recovered
And now let's look at the consequences:
- Labour needs a new leader. There is none in waiting who will do any better than Starmer. The chance is that they may well do worse.
- The chance is Reform will seek to exploit this, but not a single Reform MP was in the Commons yesterday. Questions need to be asked as to why. What are they hiding?
- Andy Burnham must be furious.
- The chance of having competent government for the next 3.5 years, which Labour has left to it, appears very low.
- Rarely, if ever, has a massive majority looked to be so meaningless.
- It is not just Starmer who is at risk here. Wes Streeting looks to be vulnerable. So does Peter Kyle. There may be others. They are too associated with Mandelson for comfort.
- Things can only get worse: large amounts of material both here and in the US have yet to reach the pubic domain. We can be sure that none of it will make anything better for Starmer or Labour.
What do I think will happen?
- McSweeney will go within days, at most.
- Just as Kwarteng's scalp did not save Truss in 2022, McSweeney's scalp now will not save Starmer.
- Starmer will be gone in little more than a week. The story is not going away. He cannot survive it.
- I have no clue who will be next Labour leader. I am not sure it makes much difference. Labour is sinking and will disappear without a trace by 2029, and nothing they can do will save it. A party corrupted to its core by neoliberalism is over, having lost all contact with its roots and the ethics that built it
- The left will go Green.
The political realignment in the UK Parliament is happening even faster than I expected.
What follows from that? To me, the biggest question is whether the UK can survive this. That question is the one that will now be asked. Traditionally, Labour held Wales and Scotland. Now that faith that this party could hold the Union together is gone. Will the Union go with it?
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[…] have already asked this morning whether Keir Starmer's career is over as a consequence of the Epstein scandal. So let me ask […]
Labour should quickly select a caretaker leader and use the next few months on a fundamental overhaul of their entire approach to government. As part of that, they should listen to you very carefully. Trouble is, they won’t.
You are right.
They won’t.
Others are, maybe.
It looks like with the Peter/Jeffrey debacle we ain’t seen nothin yet. Unless Labour can appoint someone like Clive Lewis as leader their ship like the Titanic is a goner. Even if McSweeny’:s head does roll, they are sunk.
I don’t think someone who could walk on water could save Labour now.
Hi Richard
Keir Starmer has tried, and failed, to reboot his premiership on several occasions. Each attempt founders on the issue of poor judgement. Whether it’s accepting gifts in the form of suits, or cutting winter fuel payments, or taking draconian measures against peace protestors, or appointing dodgy ministers (Wes Streeting anyone?) and dodgy advisers and ambassadors, Starmer shows bad judgement on policy, principle and appointment of the people he chooses to work with.
It goes without saying that Mandelson needs full investigation by the police and by parliament. McSweeney is poison and should be made to walk the plank. Blair is likewise toxic and should be resolutely excluded from contact with any public office. But, as you say, these steps will not be sufficient. Since taking over as Leader of the Labour Party Starmer has not demonstrated that he is capable of sound judgement; he should do the decent thing and without delay.
John
Agreed, and thanks.
I would like to think that what we are seeing is that Wales, Scotland, NI and even now it looks like Cornwall are so repulsed by Westminster, someone some where will get the message that institutional corruption it calls ‘democracy’ has finished. And the English – well some of us – are feeling a bit salty too.
No doubt the ‘establishment’ will find other things for us to poke our ire at but you cannot feel anything but that the sham that has become our hyper-individualised democracy has created so much centrifuge that it will just force us apart.
And nowhere is it more hyper-individualised than in Westminster – for sure – because that is where the biggest gains are which has become the centre of the centrifugal politics. It is Thatcher’s lasting stain on our society.
I usually take my schdenfreude straight – but this time I will add a bit of water. How great is the fall of … political pygmies.
2000s: war monger then (& now)
2010s: out of touch toff
2010s: robot
2020s: giant haystacks/mini-tRump/congenital liar
2020s: a brief Leuttuce
2020s: private equity
2020s: zionist & authoritarian
Not one of them was competent, not one of them had recogniseable human qualities such as empathy (hug-a-husky does not count). How is it that the UK’s political system is incapable of having a PM that is just – competentish, mostly human, a bit humble. This points to systemic failure covering all parties (Corbyn was an outlier/accident) and how they select people for high office. It has been going on for ++40 years & has led directly to UK decline and what is almost certainly break up. Bravo.
MPs with traditional Labour convictions have had little space to express themselves under Starmer’s leadership.
Given the chance, MPs such as Clive Lewis, could transform the Party. Perhaps even the country.
Wow, what chaos – Starmer as usual doing at least 2 U turns while running backwards with his eyes shut, scribbling “manuscript amendments” (always a sign of government chaos) as he got dragged hither and thither by his out of control shopping trolley.
(Remember when he was a “forensic” leader?)
Angela Rayner did herself no harm, yesterday.
Streeting & Kyle not looking so good.
PLP arithmetic might work in Rayner’s favour.
The way these things usually go is, as Caiaphas once said, that one man must die for the people, or, in this case, possibly two (Cummings and Johnson, – oh sorry, wrong year, I meant Truss & Kwarteng, no – sorry, wrong year again, of course I really meant Starmer & MacSweeney) but no one will end up in court, and after a lot of sound and fury, a long and expensive, titillating inquiry, an efficient cover-up should protect everyone else and the basically corrupt systems remain unchanged.
Rupert Lowe MP (Ind. ex Reform) got marmalised yesterday, which was fun to watch.
Reform UK Ltd hid in the broom cupboard, a wise move that probably won’t be followed up or challenged by the press who will only discuss his cuts to beer tax.
Yesterday we saw politics for the politicians, and the political economy of cover-up.
Something far better is available.
You say Labour has a massive majority and has 3.5 years to run, but at local level we are already seeing defections to the Greens. I don’t see that many in the PLP suitable to defect given the selection process at the last election and Your Party is dead in the water, but there are enough decent MPs who will not want to be associated with what is happening, so they could become independent or form a new group in numbers sufficient for Labour to lose it’s majority or force a general election. Given Reform have yet to be fully exposed for what they really are and the Greens are not yet ready, I wouldn’t want a general election yet, but numbers to force PR through and have a form of interim government as happens elsewhere in Europe could be a possibility.
Noted…and worth thinking about
Thank goodness Labour protected its leader by denying Burnham. It may have saved Starmer’s leadership at least 10, maybe up to 15 extra seconds.
I do think the next Labour leader should consider taking on Starmer as an advisor. His judgement has been so consistently bad, that if you simply do the opposite of what he suggests, you really can’t go far wrong.
In all seriousness, there is at least a small glimmer of hope that whoever emerges as the next leader could do some good things for the country, even if the Labour Party itself is almost certainly doomed. There’s still over 3 years left in the current parliament and a big majority of seemingly spineless Labour MPs who will vote as instructed. There are few such opportunities for the left to implement real change, if only, as you say elsewhere today, there were any left wingers remaining in the party… such wasted opportunity, but I refuse to completely extinguish all hope.
I feel that there is a hubristic undercurrent of Zionism running here that they consider renders them bomb proof.
Even if, by some minor miracle, Starmer manages to hang on until then, the panelling Labour is projected to take in the May elections will finish him.
The main interview slot on this morning’s Today programme was Amal Rajah questioning Steve Reed, one of those identified in Maguire and Pogrund’s book ‘Get In’, which details the takeover of the Labour party by a right faction associated with Mandelson, and engineered by Morgan McSweeney.
Reed was clearly a cornered man under pressure, and one wonders what his fellow promoters of Starmer are now thinking.
For the party, the problems are multiplying. McSweeney, who we have learned personally oversaw the vetting and selection process of the new candidates who won and created Labour’s immense majority at the last election
, has been guided by a visceral hatred of the Labour left, hence the overpopulation of the Labour backbenches with political nonentities and some who are renowned for strong outside/extra-Labour interests and loyalties.
When the intense post-Corbyn efforts to neutralize internal party democracy are pushed back, it will be interesting to see what remains of Labour.
I saw some of Reed in action this morning.
I thought his head was going to explode, so angry was he.
I almost drove off the road in hopeful anticipation!
The constitution – such as it is – provided the incentives and the means for the Starmer faction’s takeover of Labour. Its difficult not to feel schadenfreude at the way the hubris of ‘we’ve changed Labour and now we can change the country’ has proved so self destructive so quickly.
As Clive Lewis says ‘it is about wealth, power, and undue access – not just a few bad apples.’. The Tories are/were just as corrupt with all the billions of corrupt VIP insider contracts during the height of the pandemic .
Until we get a Commission on the Constitution to roll back the tide of dark money corruption – it wont matter whether Labour dies or staggers on. The whole system corrupts even clean politicians once they understand that their party and they themselves can get hundreds of thousands of corporate money /Zionist lobbyists, 2nd jobs, etc etc so long as they promote their ‘donors’ interests.
It has got to be made illegal to accept ‘donations’, 2nd jobs, and other bribes.. There has been barely a peep from the big parties about ReformUK getting £12m from someone based in Thailand. Why? Because it would threaten to expose their own corrupt funding.
The decision to appoint Mandelson US ambassador could be the result of the British establishment’s quasi-religious dedication to the UK’s ‘special relationship’ – vassal statehood – and desperation to be friends with Trump overcoming the distaste at Mandelson’s’ corrupt dealings in the past.
It looks as if Mandelson has finally done something to benefit the Labour party!
No steer and the genius are dropped. So what?
Nothing is likely to change with any successors. They are scared witless of the markets/financial and mainstream media to do anything remotely new such as accept “yes we can do and afford it”.
A load of horse manure spread over weeks of coverage of any Lino leadership election is a given.
‘The Left will go Green’ It is obvious that Reform is becoming much more significant Politically with large poll numbers and media attention. Green does not have the… lets be poite and call it edginess to capture the spotlight in the same way as Reform. What do people think if the number one thing they need to do to solidify their position as one of the top compeititors for the next election?
Wow! How wrong can you be!
You do know there are people who hate your so-called ‘edginess’ which is otherwise called racism, don’t you?
Don’t call again.
Sorry my sarcasm hasn’t translated at all here. I really don’t like Reform in the slightest and agree with the racism comment. My concern is that I don’t want Reform to win due to being more ‘entertaining’ on the news than sensible policy choices. I personally really want Green to win but am concerned that they do not come across as a serious party ready to take power. For example who would they nominate as chancellor who would be foreign secretary etc.
Who woild do that for Reform?
When power shifts risk happens.
That’s reality.
WHy do you think Reform are any better placed?
Starmer, on Starmer:
(today)
No one should hold public office “if they can’t meet the basic test of honesty”.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/czx3lq460n6t?post=asset%3A996757a2-784b-4798-887f-0876b5a25910#post
He’s right.
In other earlier news…
https://www.indy100.com/politics/keir-starmer-labour-leadership-pledges-2666421303
Time to go, Mr Starmer.
Thanks
I am now persuaded that Starmer, and arguably the Labour Party are living on borrowed time. A matter of weeks for Sir Keir, a few years for the party. His credibility is shot and once you lose that, there’s no point in carrying on. As you say, no recovery is possible.
It saddens me because I know what is likely to follow unless the Greens can Marshall enough support from the retreating army of Labour. I’m very much ‘old’ Labour, which Harold Wilson said was a moral mission, or it was nothing. Well, now it’s nothing in my eyes and it’s time to move on. In fact, most centre-left folks moved on months ago. I’m sad because we’ve had to endure this pointless interlude of pretence for a few years, prolonging the wait for the necessary changes required to bring about a more caring and equal society.
Labour will soon have to limp on to some safe harbour, holed below the water-line with a new captain. I know Streeting is dodgy, but he seems to be the obvious choice. At least he is articulate, not lacking in wit, and thus, capable of being popular enough to hold off Reform. What he’s not capable of is bringing the changes we need.
I rarely get time to read you blog. Chose this topic. Excellent understanding and predictions.
I emailed my Labour candidate last year before GE and told her Labour have no economic approach any different to the Tories, this will result in stagnant at best situation for people, or for things to become worse. I told her it was inevitable, that Labour and Tories will be avoid thereafter, leaving Reform for socially conservative working classes, and Greens for those who are not.
I’m surprised Starmer lasted this long. How can a Human Rights lawyer as PM be so utterly silent about what has happened to the Palestinian people. Then, how have Labour survived, taxing people via stealth when they promised otherwise.
Proof in the pudding economics is showing, neo lib politicians have no method to bring about change.
You and your team Richard, as well as other heterodox voices are sowing the seed for alternative economics ideas. Thank you
Thanks
We have to consider that the Labour party is on the verge some sort of crisis here that could well let even worse people in through their own incompetence. Badenoch anyone?
We need to remember this moment because it was self-engineered by a party that initially said it had our interests at heart. And look at who there is to pick up the pieces?
Labour has failed us in power. It failed us in opposition – it was only Tory banality that got them in anyway.
What I’m trying to say is that maybe we in this septic isle haven’t seen anything yet. Have we considered that we are still not at the bottom of the barrel?
Labour will not leave office: it will take a lot of members to defect for that to happen.
“The left will go Green.”
In my circles the Left went Green a long time ago.
FPTP has often led us to vote Lab/Lib Dem, no candidate or an unwinnable seat.
In the Corbyn era the left were
happy to vote Lab, not so under Starmer. Many life long members left the Labour Party once it was clear he lied to become leader. Some joined the Greens immediately, others took their time. Once it was clear Your Party was flounderimg and Zac became leader they joined the Greens.
As LINO limps on and Ref continues to top the polls, i expect support for the Greens to spread far beyond the left.
The upcoming elections will show where we are. I predict the Greens to win the by election and fuel a green wave.