Is Starmer the Biggest Obstacle to Labour’s Second Term?

Image credit: Lauren Hurley via Wikimedia

“Of course Starmer is boring. That’s a good thing,” declared Prospect Magazine during the 2024 General Election. While this complete lack of charisma satisfied an appetite for boredom, that same quality is now causing the British public to have a confidence crisis in PM Sir Keir Starmer. After a year and a half as Chief Minister of the Crown, Starmer has managed to make opportunist Boris Johnson, a former PM, look like a conviction politician.

Starmer’s plummeting opinion poll ratings were paired with yet another communications debacle from 10 Downing Street last week. Rumours of a Wes Streeting-led coup were directly addressed at a press conference intended to quell talk of a leadership challenge. But yet again, another communications misfire left the press confused - and more, rather than less, certain that Labour was about to boot Sir Keir out of Number 10.

My favourite line from last week’s cock-up came from The Economist: “It is as if a pilot should ignore screaming sirens in his cockpit because the plane is not due to land for another five hours and it might be a false alarm anyway.” Opinion polls taken during a governing party's term aren’t a reliable source of anything, usually. But it is very hard, nigh impossible, to stage a comeback as the most unpopular PM on record. 

Political parties, like any family, are riven with disagreement and long-held feuds. None more so than Labour. Still young in party-political age, at least in comparison to the Conservatives, they’re bound by their founding doctrine that labour (please read: ‘anything left of centre’) movements need to band together to defeat their historically wealthier opposition. Starmer has just about managed to bring Labour’s disparate factions together. He kicked Corbyn out, brought Rayner into his inner circle, and promised much to many. 

For someone who projects grey technocrat, angling for the “think of me as if I were a civil servant but you elected me” vibe, Starmer has managed to make an enemy of the people. Unlike many contemporary Western leaders, Starmer doesn’t present himself as a galvanising figure. Yet he’s certainly managed to turn many against him.

Whilst Reform UK is the greatest thorn in his side, and offers a very alluring promise for Britain, Starmer didn’t need to engage in their playground antics to try and ‘win back’ Reform voters. 

With such a large influx of Labour MPs now sitting in the Commons, there is a long list of potential candidates to replace ‘Free Gear Keir’. A number of names are being bandied about - Burnham, Mahmood, Miliband, Streeting - so last week’s reporting isn’t out of the blue. Neither was 10 Downing Street’s response. They’ve done a poor job at communications so far, so another comms fiasco isn’t even on the weekly bingo card anymore. 

Rumour has it that ministers, or the government, will hold out until after next year’s devolved elections before tabling a leadership contest. Axing a leader halfway through a term isn’t electoral suicide, just look at the Conservative governments of 2016-24. If anything, it’s more like a prolonged political death. 

As of recently, Labour as a party isn’t polling as terribly as its leader. If Labour ditches Starmer now, they still have a chance of pulling through and winning another general election. They still have the time to stop chasing Reform voters and actually stick to their guns on policy. According to one survey, Reform isn’t even the biggest threat to Labour’s voter base - the Lib Dems and the Greens are!

At first, it seemed as though Starmer had tight control of his party - dumping Corbyn and leading a fairly non-committal election campaign that only really said ‘we aren’t Tories’. But now his primus inter pares status is being challenged. Miliband is asserting himself; Streeting is performing the classic “no way I’d run, not a chance” *looks into the camera*; and Burnham is increasingly sounding like a serious alternative. The greatest asset all the potential usurpers have going for them is that they are engaging public speakers. The bar folks…

He is not MacDonald, nor Attlee and certainly not Blair. If Labour want to walk out of this alive, then Starmer has to go.