Endgame for Keir Starmer

Keir Starmer is entering his endgame.

That’s what the Caerphilly by-election tells us, and it’s what the Labour deputy leadership results tell us.

That Britain’s national media framed the contest in the working-class Welsh Valleys as more evidence of the onward march of Farageism tells its own story. Rhun ap Iorwerth - leader of the victorious left-wing nationalist Plaid Cymru - aptly wrote that “Many London commentators expected the seat to fall to Reform – perhaps even hoped it would.”

The British media ecosystem sees the hard right as politically legitimate, but not the political left. That’s because it’s dominated by aggressively right-wing newspapers, or the type of so-called “centrist” who defines their politics principally against the left. That’s why BBC Newsnight can host an entire panel discussion about the left challenge to Labour - without a single left-wing panellist present.

Caerphilly has been held by Labour since 1918, the post-Great War general election when working-class men and some women were given the vote, and survived even the near-wipeout of the Labour party in the 1931 election. That Labour support collapsed from 46% in 2021 to a marginal 11% - and on a higher turnout, too - tells that Starmerism has brought the Labour party itself to the brink of destruction.

Some “centrist” types have tried to spin the result, arguing Plaid only won because of anti-Reform UK tactical voting. The Farageists, after all, may have lost, but their vote jumped from 1.7% to 36%.

This is pure cope. The only reason some voters may have opted for Plaid Cymru as the best bet to stop Reform is because the Labour vote had collapsed. Otherwise, they would simply have coalesced around the same party their family have marched to polling stations to support for generations.

Indeed, the only public evidence of the Labour collapse prior to the election was in a Survation constituency poll conducted between 7th and 14th October. That showed Reform UK ahead - on 42%, compared the actual 36% they went on to secure - with Plaid on 38%, compared to their eventual 47.4%. But those who might therefore conclude that this helped seal the deal for Plaid through tactical voting should note that the constituency poll had Labour on 12%, almost dead-on their eventual 11%. A more likely explanation is that this poll was simply inaccurate, underestimating Plaid and inflating Reform.

And while the hyper politically engaged may have encountered the constituency poll on social media, the average Caerphilly punter was unlikely to have done so. In any case, Labour bombarded the electorate with out of date and misleading polling data suggesting the contest was between them and Plaid.

It’s obvious what happened. Labour voters abandoned their old party in disgust, believing - correctly - that it has abandoned its historic mission. Plaid stands as a progressive alternative, opposing Labour’s assaults on the welfare state, while supporting progressive taxation and public ownership. Left-wing economist James Meadway says of their economic programme that it “reads like the road not travelled under Corbynism - the never-realised promise of Labour’s 2017 ‘Alternative Models of Ownership’ paper.”

Notably, Plaid has also taken a strong stand against Israel’s genocide, backing the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions movement.

Plaid are on course to triumph in next year’s Senedd elections - certainly likely to emerge as the biggest party and thus set to lead the Welsh Government.

In England, the Green Party is surging under Zack Polanski and his insurgent eco-socialist platform. There is surely much to learn from Caerphilly. The Greens came second behind Labour in 39 seats at the last election - and that’s when they secured 6.2% nationally, rather than the up to 15% they’re now already polling. Their membership, too, has jumped from 60,000 when the Green leadership contest to 140,000 now. If they can harness that increase, that’s a much bigger activist base.

The challenge, then, is for the Greens to position themselves as having replaced Labour in dozens of seats. This is crucial to stop the ‘squeeze’ message Starmerism is set to promote - that the election will be between Labour and Nigel Farage. In formerly dyed-in-the-wool Labour Caerphilly, only Plaid could stop Reform - and the Greens need to be able to hammer that home elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the results of Labour’s deputy leadership contest were announced. The gap in the politics of Education Secretary Bridge Phillipson and sacked Cabinet minister Lucy Powell is not hugely significant - but Phillipson was the leadership candidate, while Powell tapped into disillusionment with the rightwing managerialism of Starmerism.

Powell triumphed with 54% of the vote - which includes Labour members and trade union affiliates - showing obvious disaffection from what remains of the party’s grassroots. But the number who voted is even more interesting: 160,943, compared to 461,006 in 2020.

Labour hasn’t released its membership figures since December 2024, when they claimed 333,235 members. That’s a huge drop from the 523,332 recorded four years earlier - but is likely to be inflated by cancelled direct debits that haven’t been factored in. It will have fallen much further since December.

Labour is dying. Starmer’s goons - particularly Morgan McSweeney - bet everything on both destroying the left, and defining their politics against the left.

At the last election, they only won because the Tories were so despised - and even then, Labour only won 33.7% of the vote, with the lowest turnout in British democratic history.

This political experiment has failed, and the rebirth of the left is one product of that. And as Caerphilly shows, if progressives can get their act together, then both Starmerism and the hard right can be driven back.