Labour’s turmoil is now uncontrollable

The writer is a political strategist at Burson and former political secretary to Tony Blair

Watching Sir Keir Starmer’s reset speech yesterday will have prompted bittersweet memories for anyone who, like me, has worked for a “beleaguered” politician. The precise moment political power drains from your leader is hard to pinpoint, but impossible to forget. The events may vary: the brutal reshuffle; the resignation in scandal; or the successful coup. All leave staff with two feelings: deep sadness and a paralysing impotence.

I have been with prime ministers in the dying days of their administrations and, though the characters have been different, the emotions have been the same. So I have only sympathy and fellow feeling for the staffers in Starmer’s No 10. They have lost the most precious power in politics — the ability to shape events. Instead they are responding to them. Drafting the career-saving speeches. Dreaming up the transformational new policies. Briefing the lobby optimistically. Reassuring loyalists. The inevitability is energising rather than draining: in a way this is what you were appointed for.

But these are dire times for Starmer. He continually “takes responsibility” but sidesteps accountability. We have had apologies recently for the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador, and now for the rout in elections across Britain, without an explanation of why things went wrong and how such mistakes could be avoided in the future. Accountability starts with being able to give an account of your actions, and defend or amend them. For a Tony Blair or a Barack Obama, a set-piece speech — which at times of greatest peril they would often draft themselves — was a chance to educate as well as explain. It was simply cruel to decide to force such a make-or-break address on Starmer — a politician whose powers of rhetorical persuasion are so weak that his most memorable phrase in a speech, “island of strangers”, is one he repudiated.

After last week’s election losses there is a live debate about who Labour now stands for. There is only one honest answer: neither the working classes nor the graduate middle classes, but just one man — Starmer. It was backing him that led Labour’s national executive committee to block Andy Burnham as a by-election candidate in Gorton and Denton in February. Labour lost to the Greens — a victory which gave the latter the credibility and momentum needed to sweep up votes and councils across the country.

To take responsibility now for those election results requires explaining how Labour in government can become, once again, the leading party in the progressive bloc of UK politics. The lack of a coherent response to this crisis from Starmer is the reason for the uncontrollable turmoil within his own party.

Of course, these are times of fundamental change that would test any leader. Globally, we face an ageing society, climate crisis, geopolitical instability and the advent of AI. Domestic challenges mount: housing; social care; energy transition and defence. This is not an exhaustive list but it shows the clear need for a new social contract that balances the welfare state and the warfare state, addresses intergenerational unfairness and redistributes power from Whitehall to cities, regions and nations.

This is a demanding context for contemporary leadership, for sure — but this burden is sought out, not bestowed. Which is the heart of the matter: all ambition is cruel because office finds you out. For anyone who earns their living from politics, there is one phrase that pierces you to the very core: “Not up to it!” Clement Attlee’s explanation of a reshuffle sacking is among the toughest judgments I know in politics because it is often the most accurate. Starmer has failed to acknowledge it, but that was last Thursday’s judgment from the voters.

His fate now lies in the hands of Labour MPs and his own ministers.