Kier Starmer and the Labour Party
By: Brady Condon
Over the course of four years, the United Kingdom has found itself in two different watersheds in its history. 2020 was an ever important year in these watersheds. At the beginning of the year, the British Parliament finally approved a Brexit transition plan, beginning the process of completing their withdrawal from the European Union. However, just as they made their way out of one crisis, the coronavirus hit Britain. Throughout both of these historic events, the United Kingdom has been led by the Conservative Party. After much infighting during the drafting of a Brexit deal, the party consolidated behind Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London. After some more infighting, Johnson called a snap election, which he won handily, despite being a generally unpopular leader. Despite the challenges he found himself in, he was lucky enough to go against Jeremy Corbyn, one of the few British politicians more hated than Johnson. After losing in a landslide, Labour ousted Jeremy Corbyn, and looked for a new leader. They found their leader in Kier Starmer, a former human rights lawyer. Although Starmer himself may not be as flashy or well known as his Conservative counterpart, what he represents is just as important to deciding Britain’s future.
Labour: A constant struggle
The Labour Party has its humble beginnings similar to many socialist parties in Europe. They began as a collection of trade unions and smaller socialist parties, and slowly worked their way up in governance. Eventually, they replaced the collapsing Liberal Party as the main opposition to the Tories. After World War II, Labour found new success, establishing the NHS and strengthening the welfare state further. After dismal electoral showings during the 80s, the Labour party swept the 1997 parliamentary elections under the leadership of Tony Blair. After a zenith period in the 2000s, the party fell out of favor, and never fully recovered. Throughout its entire history, Labour has struggled to balance its two factions. On the left are the socialists who formed the party in the first place. Michael Foot and Jeremy Corbyn, Labour’s two biggest electoral losers, are prime examples of this faction. In general, they are Euroskeptics and, in some fringes, support the nationalization of multiple industries. Closer towards the center are the moderates. The most successful of the moderates by far are the duo of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who eliminated nationalization from the party manifesto and appealed to a “third way” similar to Bill Clinton and the New Democrats across the Atlantic. However, New Labour entered two great crises – the Iraq War and the Great Recession. This crippled Labour when Blair left office, and Brown oversaw a massive defeat. After a battle between the Miliband brothers for the Labour leadership, the party began to move back leftwards. This led to Jeremy Corbyn, and the great defeat of 2019. The rift between the two factions was exacerbated in the 2019 election. The left wing flocked to the Conservatives in support of Brexit, and the moderates either picked the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats out of fear of Corbyn and radicalism. In order to regain power, the party needs to find some way to unite the party.
Kier Starmer
Kier Starmer entered public life as a human rights lawyer, working on several high profile cases. He was eventually elected to the House of Commons, and worked his way up the party structure, reaching the position of Brexit Shadow Secretary. Once Corbyn announced his resignation as Labour leader, Starmer had to vie with four other candidates for Labour leadership. His most notable opposition was Rebecca Long-Bailey, who promised to continue Corbyn’s legacy of socialism. Starmer, on the other hand, tried to tread the line between the recent failures of Corbynism and the past failures of Blairism. This succeeded, winning him a majority of support in the first round of voting. Upon winning the nomination, Starmer promised to take Labour out of its four-election losing streak.
How is he doing so far?
Labour has to achieve several goals for it to win back parliament. First, Labour needs to find a source of money for future campaigns. Starmer has been successful so far, courting key funding from large donors. Second, he needs to start winning the polls. Although approval for Johnson’s government has been fluctuating since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, he has been able to consistently poll ahead of the other parties. Finally, Starmer needs to have a message to stand behind. So far, that message has been not being Boris Johnson. Although it may work if Boris Johnson shoots himself in the foot any further, Labour cannot afford to be reactive to Johnson, rather they need to be proactive in reaching out to the British people.
Future of Labour
Kier Starmer is by no means the end-all-be-all to the Labour party. If he loses in the next election or falls out of grace before then, he will be replaced, sparking the whole debate between left and center again. This is a problem much of the western world faces. The Democrats of America are divided between progressives and moderates, while the Christian Democratic Union, Germany’s conservative party, has been in an uneasy alliance between the conservative CDU and Christian Social Union and the Social Democratic party for the better part of two decades, leading many to look for more ideological alternatives. Although it may seem ideal that parties can put aside ideological differences to effectively govern, if a party stands behind no ideology, then it will inevitably be divided. If Kier Starmer hopes to go down in history as a successful Labour leader and possibly even Prime Minister, then he needs to do the near-impossible task of uniting both wings of Labour while laying out a cohesive ideology.
British Parliament finally approved - https://www.euractiv.com/section/uk-europe/news/british-lawmakers-finally-approve-historic-brexit-deal/
The coronavirus hit Britain - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/europe/united-kingdom-coronavirus-cases.html
Generally unpopular leader - https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50403154
More hated - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-12/jeremy-corbyn-is-most-unpopular-leader-in--british-politics/11786960
Eliminated nationalization - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/from-the-archive-blog/2015/apr/29/clause-four-labour-party-tony-blair-20-1995
Consistently poll ahead - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election