Not since Nick Clegg nor, more recently, Liz Truss has the leader of a mainstream political party so gravely wounded their party in so many ways. But like the aforementioned leaders, Keir Starmer’s “unpopular” and devastating approach to the leadership of both Labour and Britain seems destined to throw his party the way the Liberal Democrats once fell, down a hole that took them a decade to recover from and the same hole down which the Conservatives have now fallen.
Election results
14 August saw the voters in South Jesmond go to the polls in a city council by-election. Instead of retaining the seat, Labour not only lost it to the Green Party candidate Sarah Peters but were also pushed into third place by the Liberal Democrats. They lost 25.3% of the vote, achieving only 16.8% (267 votes) while their former seat became a Green/Liberal Democrat marginal. The swing was 20.3% from Labour to the Green Party. Jamie Driscoll’s Majority Movement backed the Green Party’s Sarah Peters.
This is just the latest in a long line of disasters for Labour in their heartland of the North East this year with them going from being the largest party on Durham County Council to fourth place with a mere four seats and a loss of 38 councillors and also losing their official opposition status in Northumberland and failing to win back the council after falling 12 seats to a mere eight. Nationally in these local elections, Keir Starmer’s Party lost 187 councillors.
Why is this happening?
It is not for no reason that Labour is losing elections left, right and centre. Quite literally as voters are opting for the Greens, Reform UK and Liberal Democrats respectively. It is also for no reason that party membership is falling.
Since walking up the steps to Downing Street for the first time, Keir Starmer abruptly ended his government’s honeymoon period with disastrous decisions to essentially continue where the Conservatives left off.
Wrecking the country
It cannot be argued that Keir Starmer’s government has done no good. The EU reset deal, the process of nationalising the railways and some form of electoral reform to name a few things.
But refusing to scrap the two-child benefit cap, keeping many children in poverty as a result? Abolishing the Winter Fuel Allowance, putting many pensioners into poverty as a result? A drive to cut disability benefits which would bring poverty to many disabled and vulnerable people up and down the country? All this and more is disastrous. Read the room, Starmer, the UK doesn’t want that.
Wrecking his chances at the next election
All these policy decisions point to one thing, the downfall of Keir Starmer at the next general election. But whereas the nation would do better without Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves at Number 10 and 11 respectively, doing without Labour is another story entirely.
For without Labour, where would the country head? The Conservatives were once the default alternative but as Reform UK is on the rise, it looks as though Nigel Farage will be the one to usurp Starmer should Labour lose the next election. With Reform consistently topping every opinion poll on voting intentions since the beginning of May and many before that, as well as their parliamentary by-election and local election victories over Labour, the evidence is pointing that way. And a Reform UK government would wreck Britain even more than any party has ever done, even worse than the last 14 years of Conservative rule.
Wrecking the Labour Party
Of course, Keir Starmer is not the Labour Party and the Labour Party is not Keir Starmer. The Labour Party website describes itself as a “democratic membership organisation” that was “formed to give ordinary people a voice and improve lives”. The membership cards state that it is a “democratic socialist party” and that it believes that “wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few”.
This is true for large swathes of the Labour Party in its grassroots membership but also a significant amount of its politicians. Just look at MPs like Rachael Maskell, Neil Duncan-Jordan, Brian Leishman and Chris Hinchliff who have had the party whip removed after voting against Starmer’s punitive welfare reform bill. This is on top of the seven MPs who the Prime Minister suspended for voting in favour of removing the two-child benefit cap and all the other MPs who keep their heads down in fear of Starmer’s Sword of Damocles.
Despite the left-wing purges of Keir Starmer and former General Secretary David Evans, the party is still left-wing deep down at a grassroots level. Despite some obviously careerist Starmer loyalists, Labour does still have a sentiment of democratic socialism. The MPs and activists are just under the thumb of a ‘Red Tory tyrant’ who would rather make war with the left than confront the elite and the corporations. A man who is not only failing to follow Labour values but seems determined to wipe them from the party. A move that is driving out the democratic socialists that haven’t already been expelled. But as we’ve seen with the actual Tories, party leaders are just people and they lose their jobs fast enough when the people stand up and say they’ve had enough.
Wrecking the country: making bad policy decisions that are negatively impacting the poor and vulnerable. Wrecking his chances at the election: not listening to the electorate when they’re screaming enough and voting elsewhere. Wrecking the Labour Party: purging his grassroots membership and suspending MPs who stand up to his austerity agenda. Keir Starmer is aiming for a hat trick; to destroy the party that was founded to stand for working and vulnerable people, to make life harder for those vulnerable and already struggling in the country by making cuts to welfare and keeping punishing Conservative policies. The Prime Minister is on course for a hat trick of horrors.
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