Keir “Sir U-Turn” Starmer on the Skids

Kenneth Surin

 July 1, 2025

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Photograph Source: Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street – OGL

In a few days’ time the Labour party will be celebrating the first anniversary of its landslide 125-seat victory in the 2024 UK general election.

For now though there seems little to celebrate. Keir Starmer and his equally unappealing chancellor of the exchequer/finance minister Rachel Reeves have led Labour’s lurch from one U-Turn to another virtually from Day One. This is indicative of at least 2 things: (1) deficient policy-making; and (2) political antennae so defective they can’t pick up the political equivalent of an exploding megaton bomb.

When Labour has been in power historically, the UK’s overwhelmingly rightwing media has been quick to throw the muddy and hysterical “tax and spend” label at it in the hope that it will stick (a move certain Democrats in the US–  Zohran Mamdani in particular at this moment– will be thoroughly familiar with).

Anticipatory baulking at the likelihood of being called “tax and spenders” by the UK’s rightwing has pushed Starmer-Reeves into a corner.

Rather than taxing the rich to rescue a welfare system devastated by 14 years of Conservative austerity, a move consistently favoured in opinion polls, Starmer-Reeves have given paltry increases to a few welfare programmes while cutting several of the rest. They insist that their push for economic growth will create a supposedly prosperous UK that will then be able to fund a more ample welfare system. Understandably the public is not swayed by such nebulous imaginings about future “growth”.

Most of the Starmer-Reeves U-turns involve cuts to welfare that have had to be walked back. In the past month alone Starmer has U-turned on 3 occasions.

First, the government had axed in its 2024 Budget the one-time winter heating allowance of up to £300/$412 from 10 million pensioners, by turning what had been a universal policy into a means-tested one. The overall “savings” from this cruel measure were negligible, reflected in the U-turn’s cost of about £1.25bn/$1.70bn a year. It was Starmer’s holding out on rescinding this welfare cut for months, while committing to increased spending on defence to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, rising to 5% of GDP in 2035, purely in order to conform to Trump’s diktat to NATO governments, that provoked the ire of Labour MPs. The increased defence spending will include bombers carrying nuclear weapons based in the UK for the first time since 1998— an obvious breach of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. It was this abrupt military largesse that prompted his appalled MPs to pressure Starmer into making his U-turn on the winter heating allowance.

Starmer’s intransigence was said by his more diehard supporters to be a signal that Starmer-Reeves were prepared to be “tough” on limiting government spending, except of course when it came to the grovelling-before-Trump acquisition of new generation cyber weaponry.

Second, cuts were made to the Personal Independence Payments (PIP), which deprived 370,000 people of this support. The prospect of stroke victims unable to wash or dress themselves having budget cuts enacted on their backs was again too much for many Labour MPs—some of whom remarked pointedly that they did not enter politics to amplify the already wretched condition of the severely disabled. Also restored in this U-turn was the income of all those receiving the health element of Universal Credit, cuts which affected 2.2 million people.

 In the short term, Starmer and Reeves need £5bn/$7bn “savings” a year to balance the books and avoid increased borrowing, pleading that they inherited a £22bn/$30bn fiscal “black hole” from the previous Tory government which Labour now has to fix. This “black hole” was not mentioned when Starmer announced the massive boost to military spending. The recently abandoned benefits cuts were however said at the time to be a vital part of the financial and social “reforms” needed to deal with the Tory fiscal incontinence inherited by Labour. The U-turns on these “reforms” will certainly incur increased borrowing and/or taxation in the government’s Autumn Budget. Starmer has deferred such decisions until that Budget is announced in a few months’ time (October to be precise).

Another U-turn by Starmer involved the decision to hold a national inquiry into the child grooming gangs which prey on vulnerable teenage girls in a number of northern English cities (the police jurisdictions of Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire were mentioned in a report by Baroness Louise Casey which highlighted significant institutional failures in protecting children from sexual predation).

For months Starmer had dismissed calls for a such a national inquiry, arguing the issue had already been examined in a seven–year inquiry led by Professor Alexis Jay. The matter is sensitive because the police had found a disproportionate numbers of men of Asian ethnicity (primarily Pakistani) among those arrested for group-based child sexual exploitation. The UK anti-immigrant far right is always willing to exploit such issues when it comes to stereotyping and marginalizing immigrant communities. Perhaps out of fear of being accused of  racism the organizations tasked with protecting children at risk from predation did not take these data about two-thirds of offenders being Asian into account during investigations.

Louise Casey said in a later interview that the data should be investigated as it was “only helping the bad people” not to give a full picture of the situation, before she went on to say: “You’re doing a disservice to two sets of population, the Pakistani and Asian heritage community, and victims”.

Whatever his motives, Starmer’s delaying over the child exploitation scandal has done nothing to detract from the “too little, too late” image that has been pinned on to him. Starmer has sunk precipitously in opinion polls, with Labour losing a lot of potential voters to the far-right Reform UK led by Nigel Farage.

Starmer made his U-turns in the hope this would dissuade some of the 126 Labour MPs – about a quarter of the parliamentary party – who signed up to a wrecking amendment that could bring down the government’s Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill. A vote on the crucial second reading of the bill is due next Tuesday, and these MPs argue that the amended bill is still not good enough to merit their support. In particular they object to Starmer’s refusal to remove the two-child cap on child benefit imposed by the Tories when in power, and a restriction Starmer-Reeves place on the PIP allowance despite their U-turn, that is, the proviso that only those currently in receipt of PIP will benefit from its restoration—once Starmer’s bill becomes law, future PIP claimants will have their allowances reduced in line with the stricter eligibility rules of the originally intended bill. This results in what critics say will be an unjust two-tier welfare system based not on need but on the vagaries of time affecting the onset of one’s disability. Hence a quadriplegic parent disabled as a result of an accident on a construction site currently receiving PIP will benefit from the U-turn, but their child who becomes a quadriplegic from a car accident (say) after Starmer’s bill becomes law will suffer from the cut to PIP. Same disability, but discrepant benefit outcomes, so as the French would say: quelle justice!

Part of the blame for such chaotic stumbles are laid at the feet of Starmer’s Rasputin-like chief of staff, the Blairite Morgan McSweeney. It was McSweeney who masterminded Starmer’s coup in the party leadership race after Jeremy Corbyn’s resignation. It may be recalled that Starmer campaigned on upholding Labour’s election manifesto proposals (which were popular with the party membership) before dumping this commitment as soon as he was voted leader. McSweeney, behind the scenes, then orchestrated Starmer’s purge of the party’s social democrats. Quite simply: Starmer was campaigning on a false prospectus, in effect promising “Corbynism without Corbyn” before switching to outright Blairism when elected leader.

McSweeney was also one of the brains marshalling those Blairites who had sabotaged Corbyn at Labour HQ, after Corbyn came near to winning the 2017 general election, into his shadowy anti-left organization Labour Together. These Blairites had connived with a vicious rightwing-media character assassination of Corbyn, accusing him of antisemitism for being pro-Palestinian and being a former eastern bloc spy (even the BBC threw its weight behind the latter). But McSweeney found these Corbyn saboteurs to be good company in a move that matched any Trotskyite vanguardist infiltration of mainstream political parties.

Starmer, who is said by many who know him to have no real political convictions while red-hot with ambition, was not associated initially with McSweeney’s Labour Together. However Starmer, now on the verge of being a veritable Trojan Horse, was promoted by them to give the appearance of “continuity Corbynism” before espousing Blairism as soon as he was elected. This is amply documented in the book Get In: the Inside Story of Labour Under Starmer by Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund.

With the rise of Nigel Farage in the polls, seemingly at Starmer’s expense (Labour now has a 6-point poll deficit behind Farage’s Reform), Starmer has started to steal Farage’s racist and anti-immigrant electoral clothes, apparently at McSweeney’s instigation.

In May Starmer gave a speech about cutting immigration in which he said the UK risked becoming “an island of strangers” as a result of immigration. Starmer’s speech echoed the notorious “rivers of blood” speech delivered in 1968 by the anti-immigrant Tory MP Enoch Powell, a classics professor in a previous life, who referenced “the River Tiber foaming with much blood”, when voicing his feverish anxieties about immigration.

In typical fashion Starmer retracted his racist speech. In an interview published in the Observer newspaper Starmer said: “I wouldn’t have used those words if I had known they were, or even would be interpreted as an echo of Powell.

“I had no idea – and my speechwriters didn’t know either.

“But that particular phrase – no – it wasn’t right. I’ll give you the honest truth: I deeply regret using it”.

Oh dear, Starmer shows in these remarks how shockingly ignorant he is about the UK’s recent political history, and in any event he needs to give his speechwriters the boot, given that they were almost certainly drawn from the McSweeney operation.

The indication here is that Labour and Starmer are torn between 2 opposing electoral strategies.

On the one hand is the McSweeney approach designed to peel-off Labour voters who might defect to Nigel Farage. On the other is a broader strategy, said to be favored by the influential centre-right Labour minister Pat McFadden, which opts for an appeal to the national electorate instead of attracting those who might move to Farage in a general election.

For now the McSweeney strategy prevails with the ambitious leader lacking in political principles. However, if Labour continues to sink in the political ratings, its MPs may decide that Starmer is not up to the job. It is rumoured he’s been given a year to sort things out. Who knows what will happen, least of all the endlessly irresolute Starmer?

At the same time Labour lacks even the merest critique of capital, has no intention of deepening democracy by backing proportional representation, and refuses to take seriously the fucking of our planet as the despoliation of the environment and nature are given free rein.

Labour’s position is dire, and not just electorally. The only improvement for it on the horizon is getting rid of Starmer and his spectral eminence grise Morgan McSweeney.

Some of us who recall a better Labour still live in hope.

Kenneth Surin teaches at Duke University, North Carolina.  He lives in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Why Keir Starmer's hard to pin down:

 A Trotskyist who's capitalists' delight

Keir Starmer, the UK PM, a Trotskyist in his youth, has become capitalists' favourite now. As a lawyer, he helped over 400 people escape the gallows but defended police excesses too. The ambiguity in his personality might help him respond to changing situations and come up with pragmatic and radical solutions.


Keir Starmer is set to be the UK PM and his ambiguous personality might help him respond to changing situations and come up with pragmatic and radical solutions. (Image: AP)

Priyanjali Narayan
New Delhi,

UPDATED: Jul 6, 2024 1

In ShortKeir Starmer is the most working-class Labour Party leader of his generation
He was a Troskyist, who now supports wealth creation as part of Labour agenda
These shades in Starmer's personality show his evolution and flexibility


Keir Starmer becoming the Prime Minister of the UK was inevitable, if his ex-partner, Philipa Kauffman, is to be believed. "If you’d told me back then that Keir would be prime minister, it wouldn’t have surprised me one little bit. One, he is very capable. Two, he is utterly driven. Three, his values and principles are so important," Kauffman says in Starmer's biography by Tom Baldwin.

Capable, utterly driven and principled. Keir Starmer's win is no surprise for his ex-partner.

The biography was released in February, when it had become pretty evident that the Starmer-led Labour Party wasn't just on course to win the general election, but to sweep it.

On Friday, the Labour Party leader emerged victorious in the July 4 election, enabling Labour to form the government in the UK after 14 years. It was Starmer who steered Labour to victory by wooing and consolidating voter anger against the Conservatives.

"Starmer is peculiarly hard to pin down, especially for people who work in politics, because he resists being fitted into the clean lines within which politicians usually project themselves," wrote his biographer.

It is really "hard to pin down" who Starmer is. In Starmer's personality, we see many shades, even paradoxes.

He was the editor of Trotsky magazine in the UK who put "wealth creation" as an important agenda of the Labour Party in this election.

He is the most working-class leader of the Labour Party Britain has seen for years. But he is 'Sir', having been knighted by the British crown. He is a private man who has chosen public life to be in the political limelight.

Starmer is an anti-monarchist, who will now meet the King once a week. These paradoxes show his evolution as a political leader and a person over time. He adapts and is quick to understand and respond.

He was a human rights lawyer who became the adviser to the Northern Irish Policing Board, where he helped police officers justify their use of guns and plastic bullets.
'MY DAD WAS A TOOLMAKER, MY MOM A NURSE,' SAYS STARMER

Starmer is going to be the most working-class PM of the generation in the UK. He has defeated a man -- Rishi Sunak -- who some say was even richer than the royals.

Born to a toolmaker and a nurse, Starmer never had to think of or mention his origins till he entered politics.

"'My dad was a toolmaker and my mum was a nurse,' before adding – in words that these days might induce some form of aneurysm among those who have followed his interviews and speeches since – 'not everybody knows that and that’s because I don’t say it very often," wrote his biographer.

Starmer also spoke about unpaid bills and the phone being cut off. They could not eat pasta or travel abroad. His father felt "very disrespected" working as a factory worker, revealed Starmer.

But Starmer moved beyond his circumstances and was the first in the family to attend University of Leeds, and then do a year at Oxford.

Now, he is helping families get their first mortgage as his family's humble home "was everything to my family — it gave us stability, and I believe every family deserves the same".

He would go on to be a lawyer.

STARMER BECOMES A LAWYER, BUT WILL LAW BE ENOUGH?

He was a human rights lawyer at the famous Doughty Street Chambers. He fought death penalty cases for Commonwealth countries and was even part of a legal team that got the death sentences of 417 people removed.

He would never mention his working-class roots to win a case. In fact, he was never a "jury's lawyer". He built his case with facts. His style was considered "forensic" even when he represented the opposition in the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons.

He was a problem solver, not a poser.

"He’ll walk around a problem, look at it from every angle, almost touch and feel it before working out what to do. If we can’t abolish the death penalty altogether, he’ll find ways to engage with the prosecutors in that country or the government. There’s no point in telling these countries that capital punishment is barbaric just to get some cheap applause – where does that get you?"

He had pragmatic solutions to radical problems and was more interested in getting solutions than posturing, wrote his biographer.

This side of his personality is what will be of great use in 10 Downing Street. A London-based lawyer who worked with him said he was always "looking 10 miles down the road."

He became the top prosecutor of the country.

After being a human rights lawyer for decades, Starmer became in-charge of the Crown Prosecution Service in 2008 and was responsible for criminal prosecutions in England and Wales.

He saw the first British prosecution of al-Qaeda terrorists. He also came under scrutiny after he was, what some considered, harsh to rioters in London after the police shot dead a black man in 2011, Mark Duggan.

Finally, in 2014, Starmer was knighted and he became, 'Sir Keir'. But as Kauffman said, law was not enough for him.

KEIR STARMER ENTERS BRITISH POLITICS

Starmer finally entered electoral politics at the age of 52.

In 2015, he became the MP for the London district of Holborn and St Pancras in 2015, and was the “shadow minister” and dealt with Labour's position on Brexit.

Starmer had been against leaving the European Union but many Labour voters were in favour of it. Finally, the party could not reach a conclusion and asked for a second referendum.

This, along with other factors, led to the defeat of the Labour Party in 2019.

After the elections, Starmer became the party leader. He worked relentlessly and his fluidity as a leader made him cater to many. While several people say they do not know what he stands for, in reality, he stands for a few things.

“What Keir has done is taken all the left out of the Labour Party,” billionaire John Caudwell, told the BBC. “He’s come out with a brilliant set of values and principles and ways of growing Britain in complete alignment with my views as a commercial capitalist.”

Another strength of Starmer is that he hasn't been tied down to any of the party's factions and adapts to the situation.

“One of Keir’s greatest strengths is that he’s never been from or beholden to a particular faction of the Labour Party. I think that’s because – unlike almost every previous Labour leader – he didn’t spend his life in the Labour Party, and it isn’t his whole life, even now. It’s why he could win a leadership contest from the soft left, but now lead it from the centre-right," said Chris Ward, one of his principal advisers until 2021.

As for what he stands for?

“He believes in pragmatism, in developing policy by solving problems, not through grand theory. And he doesn’t come to the table with ideological presuppositions,” said Josh Simons, who headed the think tank, Labour Together.

As for immigration, Starmer has stated that they will use the money currently being used to send the immigrants to Rwanda to establish a new Border Security Command to tackle gangs operating via small boats across the border and other purposes.

He also stands for supporting his British Indian voters as he visited the Swaminarayan Temple in Kingsbury on June 28 to reiterate his commitment to building a “strategic partnership with India”.

"If we’re elected next week, we will strive to govern in the spirit of sewa to serve you and a world in need,” said Starmer, reiterating his promise of “absolutely no place for Hinduphobia in Britain”.

Though it is hard to pond down the real Starmer, the advantage of this flexibility of personality is that the new British Prime Minister can adapt to fast-changing situations and respond to them fast.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for TROTSKYISM 

RED TORY

Britain's Keir Starmer plots painstaking path to power

Wed, 4 October 2023 


Leader of the Labour Party Keir Starmer speaks at an event in London
By Elizabeth Piper

LONDON (Reuters) - On June 7, a group of star-struck British lawmakers posted selfies with Kiss bassist Gene Simmons when the glam rocker visited parliament. Hours later, those from the opposition Labour party were summoned by senior members in charge of discipline and ordered to delete the posts and apologise.

In 2004, Simmons had been heavily criticised for calling Islam a "vile culture" and the Labour MPs were sent on their way with warnings about any posts or comments that strayed from Labour's line ringing in their ears, two told Reuters.

Welcome to Keir Starmer's Labour Party.

After Labour's worst defeat for 84 years in 2019 under left-wing veteran Jeremy Corbyn, Starmer - a human rights lawyer who became Britain's top prosecutor before turning to politics in his 50s - has instilled a culture of discipline in what was a deeply fractured party.

Taking lessons from centre-left parties in Australia and Germany, he has imbued Labour with a cautious and methodical approach in the race to be prime minister, hoping competence and pragmatism rather than any overriding ideology will be enough to oust the Conservatives, in power since 2010.

Ten people who have worked, studied or socialised with Starmer, 61, told Reuters he would press on with his systematic approach if he becomes prime minister in an election expected next year. A vote must be held by the end of January, 2025.

"The next stage is where we've got to be even tougher, even more focused, even more disciplined," Starmer said about the run-up to the election in a conversation on stage with Tony Blair at the former Labour prime minister's institute in July.

While Starmer's approach has not won over all hearts and minds within Labour, the party has a healthy 15-20 point lead in the polls and he remains ahead of Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in the personality stakes.

"Thanks to Keir Starmer's leadership, voters see a changed Labour Party that is ready to change the country with a mission-driven government," a Labour spokesperson said when asked to comment for this story. "Everything we offer will be built on a bedrock of economic stability and a plan for growth."

'CORBYN WITHOUT THE MADNESS'

Named after the founder of the Labour Party, Keir Hardie, Starmer was brought up in a staunchly left-wing household.

As a barrister, he often defended underdogs and worked to get people off death row around the world. He became a Labour lawmaker in 2015 at the age of 52, a year after he received a knighthood for his services to law and criminal justice.

Five years on, he inherited the party after its worst election showing since 1935. Corbyn's plan to transform Britain with public sector pay rises, higher company taxes and sweeping nationalisation, fell flat with voters and the party was dogged by accusations of anti-Semitism and a fudged Brexit policy.

Starmer was seen "by many who supported Corbyn's policies as Corbyn without the madness", said his friend and Labour lord, Charlie Falconer.

According to Claire Ainsley, who was Starmer's executive director of policy in 2020-22 and now directs a new project on centre-left renewal at the U.S.-based Progressive Policy Institute, his advisers looked to Germany and Australia for lessons on how to turn things around.

Olaf Scholz was trailing badly in the polls when he was nominated as candidate for the centre-left SDP ahead of federal elections in 2021, after which he became chancellor. Australia's Anthony Albanese took over as leader of the Labor Party after it lost an election in 2019 and became prime minister in 2022.

Both changed their fortunes by focusing on a handful of commitments - Starmer has five missions - and running a disciplined campaign, Ainsley said. This was a strategy Starmer not only took on board, it also suited his talents.

Several of the people close to Starmer described him as more of a methodical lawyer than an ideological politician, and said this coloured his approach after becoming leader.

Falconer said Starmer embarked on a four-stage plan: first getting rid of alleged anti-Semitism within the party; putting the organisation back on its feet; bringing the best Labour lawmakers into his "shadow cabinet"; and finally adopting policies to address Britain's needs.

Ainsley said after tackling the factionalism, morale and finances of the party, Starmer's plan was then to argue why the Conservative government was not fit to govern and finally present his "positive offer" to the public.

"He has done it systematically always with an eye to the strategic, and doing it with enormous self-discipline," Falconer said.

STEP BY STEP

It's a strategy Starmer learnt when he became Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) - essentially Britain's top prosecutor - in 2008, the people close to him said.

Then, he set goals for each of the years he had in front of him. The first involved travelling around the country to see how the different offices operated, then came reform, implementation and finally to prepare for his successor.

That was his instinct too when he became Labour leader but his plans were somewhat thwarted by COVID: his victory speech was delivered virtually from his living room.

Starmer later still went on his tour though, largely under the radar of television cameras, and would purposely talk to people who did not agree with Labour policies, Ainsley said.

"Corbyn would like to go to gatherings of the faithful. Keir does the opposite," she told Reuters.

Critics, especially those on the left of the party, complain this shows Starmer relies more on focus groups than ideology - and one shadow minister said they wondered whether he was bold enough to convince Britons to vote Labour.

Supporters say, however, it can only be an asset, describing him as someone of the left, as well as a pragmatist who assesses situations and draws conclusions.

For example, those on the left say Starmer has reneged on his leadership campaign pledges to uphold some of Corbyn's 2019 manifesto, such as the renationalisation of public utilities.

But Ainsley said he would have looked at the issue and decided "he is not convinced that the case for re-nationalisation in all cases at this particular point is there".

One person who worked with Starmer when he was advising the Policing Board to monitor the Police Service of Northern Ireland's compliance with the Human Rights Act said: "Everything he does, it's because he's thought carefully about what's going to get him to where he needs to be."

"He thinks about the best way to take people with him, or to take the people with him he needs to take with him."

'CHAMPION OF THE UNDERDOG'

It was while he was DPP that Starmer realised he had to become engaged in politics - and get into government - if he wanted to bring about real change, Falconer said.

But even after entering parliament, supporters and critics alike said he was still more of a lawyer than politician.

"As a lawyer you don't establish a coherent political position," said Falconer. "You have causes and his causes tended to be on the left. He was a real champion of the underdog and he was completely loyal to a series of causes."

Starmer often took on pro bono legal work, such as getting convicts off death row in the Caribbean. Working for free, he also played a key role in helping overturn the mandatory death penalty in Uganda, saving the lives of 417 people.

And working alongside lawyer Mark Stephens, they famously won an appeal in the European Court of Human Rights against the British government over the "McLibel" trial involving two environmentalists and fast-food chain McDonalds.

Now, his cause is getting Labour into power - and his pragmatism runs through his policy commitments.

With Britain's coffers all but empty, Starmer has issued a strong message to his top team: don't make any promises the party cannot prove can be funded.

Instead, they need to come up with ideas to make his five missions - economic growth, net zero, the health service, crime and education - work without increasing taxes.

That has led to courting business, as Blair did before the first of his three election victories in 1997.

Starmer's overreaching goal is to promote economic growth to try to increase tax receipts so Labour can help a public sector he says has been starved by years of Conservative austerity.

While cosying up to business is unpopular with the Labour left, people close to Starmer say even when he was a ring leader on the top deck of the bus to school, leading the laughter with other teenagers, there was a steeliness as well.

"He's clearly not worried about taking difficult decisions," said Andrew Cooper, who went to Reigate Grammar school near London with Starmer and was a former adviser to Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron.

Cooper said Starmer was famed at school, and often mocked, for his stubborn obsession with British rock band Status Quo - and never turned to the trendier sounds of new wave or punk.

"This is not somebody who craves to be liked."

(Editing by David Clarke)

Safety first? Labour seeks to maintain poll lead at annual meet


Peter HUTCHISON
Wed, 4 October 2023 

Labour Party leader Keir Starmer announced his 'five missions' earlier this year (ANDY BUCHANAN)

Britain's Labour opposition gathers this weekend for its annual conference, with the centre-left party currently on course to return to power in a general election expected next year.

Labour, led by Keir Starmer, goes into the four-day event -- which starts on Sunday in Liverpool, northwest England -- well ahead of the governing Conservatives in opinion polls.

After this week's chaotic Tory conference, which hampered Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's bid to kick-start a resurgence of his beleaguered party, experts say the primary objective of Labour's meet is a simple one: do nothing that jeopardises its lead.

"The main thing will be don't cock up. No hostages to fortune, no signs of dissension," political scientist Anand Menon told AFP.

Labour last held the keys to 10 Downing Street in 2010 and is readying itself to govern again following a vote that must be held by January 2025 at the latest.

Starmer, 61, has revived the fortunes of a party that suffered a landslide defeat to the Conservatives at the last election in 2019 under former far-left leader Jeremy Corbyn, by pulling it back to the centre ground.

A recent European trip, including a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, was seen by many as Starmer projecting himself as a prime minister-in-waiting.

Labour has enjoyed double-digit poll leads for months, with Britain locked in a cost-of-living crisis and plagued by strikes, and with Tory infighting leading to three prime ministers in little over a year.

Recent surveys, though, have showed the gap narrowing after the announcement of populist policies by Sunak that attempt to draw clear dividing lines between the Tories and their opponents.

Starmer, a former chief state prosecutor, is regularly accused of being too cautious, and observers are keen to see whether he adopts a bolder stance in Liverpool.

"The only interesting thing I think will be the degree to which Starmer feels pressured into trying to be a bit more assertive in terms of spelling out a vision," Menon said.

Starmer has dropped several pledges made during his successful 2020 leadership bid, including plans to scrap university tuition fees, citing the economic climate.

Labour has also backed away from tax increases, allowing Conservatives to accuse Starmer of flip-flopping on several issues.

- Symbolic policies? -

Starmer has ruled out taking Britain back into the European Union but has pledged to seek "a much better deal for the UK" with the bloc. The post-Brexit Trade and Cooperation agreement struck by former premier Boris Johnson is due for review in 2025.

In July, he laid out his party's "five missions for a better Britain" that will form the backbone of its election manifesto.

They include making Britain a green energy superpower and building a national health service "fit for the future".

Political experts expect the Labour leader to put more flesh on the bones of these policies when he speaks at the conference Tuesday, which could be the last annual gathering of the party before voters go to the polls.

"One would expect one or two quite symbolic policies from the conference, things to associate Starmer with over the next few months. I think that will be important," Karl Pike at Queen Mary University of London told AFP.

But with opinion polls suggesting that only Labour can blow the party's chances now, Starmer may feel it is wiser to keep his cards close to his chest until nearer the election, which experts have speculated could occur in the spring or autumn of 2024.

Economic constraints mean Labour may also be reluctant to commit to major spending pledges they might not be able to meet if elected.

Starmer will also have to decide whether to engage with the Tories over so-called "culture wars" on immigration and gender rights, which interior minister Suella Braverman ramped up with her conference speech on Tuesday.

"The question for him is how safety first is he going to be, at the conference and over the next few months," said Pike.

"How much is it going to be about what Labour wants to do for the country? And how much is it going to be about just attacking the Conservatives?"

pdh/phz/js

TORY WIPE OUT

Keir Starmer pledges 'national renewal' after Labour wins UK election

Prime Minister-elect Keir Starmer pledged Friday to start a period of "national renewal" in the UK after his opposition Labour party crossing the 326-seat threshold for a working majority in the House of Commons, defeating the ruling Conservatives in the general election.


Issued on: 04/07/2024 -

06:41

Britain's Labour party leader Keir Starmer delivers a speech during a victory rally at the Tate Modern in London early on July 5, 2024. © Justin Tallis, AFP

Keir Starmer on Friday will become Britain's new prime minister, as his centre-left opposition Labour Party swept to a landslide general election victory, ending 14 years of right-wing Conservative rule.

"The Labour Party has won this general election, and I have called Sir Keir Starmer to congratulate him on his victory," a sombre-looking Rishi Sunak said after he was re-elected to his seat.

"Today, power will change hands in a peaceful and orderly manner with goodwill on all sides," the Tory leader added, calling the results "sobering" and saying he took responsibility for the defeat.

At a triumphant party rally in central London, Starmer, 61, told cheering activists that "change begins here" and promised a "decade of national renewal", putting "country first, party second".

But he cautioned that change would not come overnight, even as Labour snatched a swathe of Tory seats around the country, including from at least eight Cabinet members.

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps was the highest-profile scalp of the night so far, with other big names, including senior minister Penny Mordaunt and leading Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg also defeated.

Finance minister Jeremy Hunt hung on to remain an MP, but only by 891 votes.

'Keir we go'

Labour raced past the 326 seats needed to secure an overall majority in the 650-seat parliament at 0400 GMT, with the final result expected later on Friday morning.

An exit poll for UK broadcasters published after polls closed at 2100 GMT on Thursday put Labour on course for a return to power for the first time since 2010, with 410 seats and a 170-seat majority.

The Tories would only get 131 seats in the House of Commons – a record low – with the right-wing vote apparently spliced by Nigel Farage's anti-immigration Reform UK party, which could bag 13 seats.

In another boost for the centrists, the smaller opposition Liberal Democrats would get 61 seats, ousting the Scottish National Party on 10 as the third-biggest party.

The projected overall result bucks a rightward trend among Britain's closest Western allies, with the far right in France eyeing power and Donald Trump looking set for a return in the United States.

British newspapers all focused on Labour's impending return to power for the first time since Gordon Brown was ousted by David Cameron in 2010.

"Keir We Go," headlined the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror. "Britain sees red," said The Sun, the influential Rupert Murdoch tabloid, which swung behind Labour for the first time since 2005.

Tory future

Sunak will tender his resignation to head of state King Charles III, with the monarch then asking Starmer, as the leader of the largest party in parliament, to form a government.

The Tories worst previous election result is 156 seats in 1906. Former leader William Hague told Times Radio the projections would be "a catastrophic result in historic terms".

But Tim Bale, politics professor at Queen Mary, University of London, said it was "not as catastrophic as some were predicting" and the Tories would now need to decide how best to fight back.

Right-wing former interior minister Suella Braverman and Mordaunt, who was leader of the House of Commons, both said the Tories failed because they had not listened to the British people.

But Brexit champion Farage, who finally succeeded in becoming an MP at the eighth time of asking, has made no secret of his aim to take over the party.

"There is a massive gap on the centre-right of British politics and my job is to fill it," he said after a comfortable win in Clacton, eastern England.
To-do list

Labour's resurgence is a stunning turnaround from five years ago, when hard-left former leader Jeremy Corbyn took the party to its worst defeat since 1935 in an election dominated by Brexit.

Starmer took over in early 2020 and set about moving the party back to the centre, making it a more electable proposition and purging infighting and anti-Semitism that lost it support.

Opinion polls have put Labour consistently 20 points ahead of the Tories for almost the past two years, giving an air of inevitability about a Labour win – the first since Tony Blair in 2005.

Starmer is facing a daunting to-do list, with economic growth anaemic, public services overstretched and underfunded due to swingeing cuts, and households squeezed financially.

He has also promised a return of political integrity, after a chaotic period of five Tory prime ministers, including three in four months, scandal and sleaze.

(AFP)

Newly-elected PM Keir Starmer poised to bring a low profile to 10 Downing Street

The Labour Party won a landslide victory in the UK general election on Thursday, making Keir Starmer the country’s first Labour prime minister in 14 years. Starmer's victory caps a remarkable political rise for the former human rights lawyer and chief prosecutor, first elected an MP in 2015.


Issued on: 05/07/2024 -

Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer delivers a speech on Labour's energy policy, at the Greenock Arts Centre, northwest of Glasgow on May 31, 2024. 

© Andy Buchanan, AFP

01:37

By: Cyrielle CABOT|

Video by: Charlotte HUGHES

Always neat in appearance, with his well-combed greying hair, stern expression and dispassionate voice, 61-year-old Starmer is an outlier in UK politics compared to his peers and Conservative predecessors.

Far removed from the antics of the likes of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Jeremy Corbyn and Nigel Farage – whose careers have been peppered with controversy and scandal – the Labour Party leader stands out for his ability to keep a low profile.

So much so, in fact, that little is known about 10 Downing Street’s new occupant.
A knight with humble origins

Sir Keir – he rarely uses the honorific title himself – was awarded a knighthood in 2014 for his services to “law and criminal justice”.

Starmer comes from a modest background. Born to blue-collar parents in 1962, Starmer was named after Keir Hardie, founder of the Labour Party of which his parents were staunch supporters, and grew up in a small town in Surrey.

“My dad was a toolmaker and worked in a factory all his life, and my mum was a nurse,” Starmer often noted in speeches.

The first among four siblings to receive higher education, Starmer attended the University of Leeds from where he graduated with honours and a law degree before heading to Oxford for postgraduate studies.


Starmer then became a barrister in 1987, specialising in human rights law and represented death row inmates in Africa and the Caribbean.

Often providing legal advice for free, Starmer also worked on several high profile cases including the defence of environmental activists against McDonald’s and Shell.

Nicknamed “lefty lawyer” by opponents, Starmer took legal action against human rights violations in the context of the Northern Ireland conflict and helped set up the Northern Ireland Police Board following the Good Friday agreement that ended decades of violent conflict in Northern Ireland.

In 2008, Starmer was appointed Director of Public Prosecutions where he oversaw the prosecution of MPs charged with embezzlement and journalists accused of phone hacking.
A late start in politics

Starmer's entry into politics came fairly late in life, at the age of 52.

He was first elected to parliament in 2015, serving as the member for his London constituency where he lived with his wife and their two children.

Quickly climbing the ranks of the Labour Party, Starmer soon became shadow Home Office minister before quitting the role in protest of former party head Jeremy Corbyn’s lack of leadership during the Brexit campaign.

Starmer went on to become the party’s spokesman on Brexit-related issues and eventually took over the party’s leadership when Corbyn stood down following Labour’s crushing defeat in the 2019 general elections against Boris Johnson’s Conservatives.

It was from that point on that Starmer firmly established himself as a politician, said Thibaud Harrois, lecturer in contemporary British civilisation at Sorbonne-Nouvelle University.

"Keir Starmer made it his mission to turn the page on Jeremy Corbyn," Harrois said, adding that “he started by dismissing all those accused of anti-Semitism from within the party, including Jeremy Corbyn himself."

In May, Starmer expelled Corbyn from the party after suspending him over a row on anti-Semitism.

Intent on winning the popular vote, Starmer also started aligning Labour’s policies with the centre by preventing left-wing candidates from standing for the party.

Recentering Labour

"He really reshaped the then very left-leaning Labour Party in an attempt to appeal to a more centrist, even centre-right electorate," Harrois said.

Politically, Starmer favours economic interventionism and social policies, while remaining firm on immigration and security, he said.

"But he always remains measured, refusing to make big promises and constantly reminds people that the state coffers are empty", he added.

Harrois also highlighted Starmer’s “cautious” posture, often denounced by Tories and the hard left as “lacking in courage” and "prevents people from seeing his true position".

While he has promised to repeal laws restricting the right to strike, he has backpeddled on his proposal to increase welfare benefits.

Starmer also watered down what was seen as his flagship policy: investing up to 28 billion pounds (€33 billion) a year in renewable energies.

Despite attracting criticism from both ends of the political spectrum for his ideas, Starmer sought to court the public’s favour by calling attention to his modest upbringing.

"Unlike Tony Blair, for example, Keir Starmer is well aware that he is not charismatic," said Harrois. "By emphasising his background, he plays on the image of a man who is above all serious, straightforward and methodical," he said, adding that Starmer’s cultivated image has become an asset "after years of scandals" in UK politics.

But Starmer’s arrival at number 10 is mostly “contextual", driven by "the population's desire for change", Harrois said.

"In the current political landscape and in this particular context, he has succeeded in establishing himself as the serious alternative", he said.

A position perfectly illustrated by Starmer’s campaign slogan, chanted at every meeting: "It's time for change".

This paper is adapted from the original in French.

KEIR STAMERS VICTORY SPEECH

 

Angela Rayner: Life and career of Labour's soon-to-be Deputy Prime Minister after General Election win

By Sofia Fedeczko
Published 5th Jul 2024

By now, almost everyone in the country knows who Angela Rayner is.

After the General Election, which resulted in a landslide victory for Labour and the first change of government in 15 years, the Ashton-under-Lyne MP is now one of the most powerful people in the country.

As Angela and her Labour colleagues gear themselves up for the first crucial 100 days in power, here is everything you need to know about the life and career so far of the UK’s soon-to-be Deputy Prime Minister.

Angela Rayner’s life outside of politics

Unlike many of her colleagues in Westminster, Angela Rayner’s life started out on a council estate. Angela was many things before politics, including teenage mother, care worker and union official.

In interviews throughout her career, Angela has spoken openly about her difficult childhood, growing up in poverty and having to look after her mother, who had bi-polar and depression. She has two siblings.

Deputy leader and Ashton MP Angela Rayner | Getty Images

She attended Avondale School, but left at 16 with no qualifications and pregnant with her first child Ryan. She then returned to college part-time, studying social care and British Sign Language.

Angela went on to work as a carer looking after the elderly for Stockport Council for several years, eventually being elected as a union representative. She rose through the UNISON ranks, becoming the union’s highest elected official in the North West.

In 2010, she married Mark Rayner, a fellow Unison official. Angela had two more sons with Mark – Charlie, who was born 23 weeks premature, and Jimmy. The couple split in 2020 but have remained friends. Angela became a grandmother in 2017, aged 37, when her son Ryan welcomed a baby daughter.

Angela Rayner also had a relationship with fellow Labour MP and former shadow transport minister Sam Tarry. He was sacked from his ministerial role in 2022 after joining the picket line alongside striking rail workers. They split in 2023.

Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar and Deputy Labour Party Leader Angela Rayner speak at a campaign event in Hamilton on Friday. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Angela Rayner’s life in politics

Having risen the union ranks, Angela was selected to be a prospective party candidate for Labour in 2014 and then elected to parliament as the MP for Ashton-Under-Lyne in 2015. She was the constituency’s first female MP in its 180-year history.

After just one year in Westminster, Angela was selected for the front bench to serve as the Shadow Minister for Education under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. She was re-elected as MP in the 2017 General Election with a much higher share of the votes at 60.4%, and again in the 2019 snap general election with 48.1%.

She was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour party in 2020 when Keir Starmer became leader of the party. However, she was sacked as Party Chair following a historic Labour loss to the Conservatives in the Hartlepool by-election in 2021. She became Shadow Deputy Prime Minister during a reshuffle in 2023, taking over from Harriet Harmen. She was also appointed Shadow Secretary for Levelling Up. Politically, Angela Rayner has described herself as a socialist.

General Election 2024: 'Putting Tameside on the map' - Angela Rayner retains her seat in Ashton-under-Lyne

Tameside General Election results: Angela Rayner re-elected in Ashton-under-Lyne as Labour storm to landslide

Angela Rayner’s time in politics has not been without controversy. In 2021, she publicly apologised to the Conservative party for calling its members “scum” during the Labour party conference.

In 2022, she hit out at a Daily Mail article that claimed she was intentionally crossing and uncrossing her legs in Parliament as a part of a “Basic Instinct” style ploy to distract then Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Most recently, in March 2024, Angela Rayner was accused of not paying the capital gains tax on the sale of her Stockport council house in 2015. She was cleared in May following an investigation by Greater Manchester Police, who said that no further action was needed.