Starmer's project of lies falls apart

But the plotters have learned nothing from why Starmerism was a catastrophe

As I warned would happen - over and over again, in fact - Keir Starmer’s premiership has been a catastrophe, and now it is falling apart.

If that sounds like a graceless ‘I told you so’, then I offer no apology.

Last night’s briefing from No. 10 that the uber-Blairite Health Secretary Wes Streeting is plotting a coup has plunged an already crisis-stricken government into turmoil. It has succeeded only in weakening Keir Starmer, and boosting Starmer’s putative leadership bid, which makes you think that was the plan all along.

More on that shortly.

Streeting clearly is on manoeuvres. As the New Statesman reported two days ago: “Parliamentary supporters of Wes Streeting have independently canvassed MPs on whether they would prefer him or Angela Rayner as leader”.

According to The Times newspaper: “Senior government figures said they had been told Streeting had 50 frontbenchers willing to step down if the budget was received badly and the prime minister failed to resign.” Starmer’s allies meanwhile declare the prime minister would fight a leadership challenge.

According to Sky News’ Sam Coates, on Monday, Wes Streeting was telling colleagues that Keir Starmer was “finished”. Coates adds: “And they talked me through the kind of conversation this this person doesn’t say whether what they would be in the frame to take over, but they do think that the prime minister is pretty much done for.”

In two weeks time, the government is going to announce a Budget in which they abandon their flagship policy - not to increase income tax, VAT or National Insurance.

As I wrote in my column for the Guardian, they made this promise over and over again and crucially put it in their manifesto. This was a classic of a genre from the faction who seized control of the Labour party. They think they’re masterful strategists and thought they were oh so clever - that this would neutralise destabilising political attacks.

It was an insanely stupid pledge to make given our economic environment, and the state of the public realm. clearly they should be hiking Income Tax on the well off for a start. But they made that solemn unequivocal pledge.

In the coming Budget in two weeks time, the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, plans to rip up that pledge and hike income tax. The context here is that the government is already hated, with Starmer having scored worse ratings than Liz Truss at her nadir - indeed, worse than any prime minister in recorded history. The other context is that faith in our democracy and trust in politicians is in crisis. When they abandon that pledge, the government is going to go into meltdown.

In the briefings last night, No. 10 warned that a change in government would cause disaster in the bond markets and thus “plunge the UK into an economic crisis.”

This is truly disturbing stuff. The government is saying here that there can’t be a change in leadership because the bond markets won’t like it. This is a Labour government telling Labour MPs that the bond traders must decide who runs the government.

But the message that sends to the British people is what really matters here. This is an age of fury at the elites, the establishment. Unfortunately Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has benefited from a lot of that, though we can see signs of Zack Polanski’s Greens benefiting, too.

The British people are being told that the real masters of the country are bond traders. They’re being told that whoever is in office, the same people are always in power. And they are right.

It gets worse!

As the likes of the BBC reports, No. 10 is going round saying that overthrowing Starmer “would jeopardise the good relationship the prime minister has established with President Trump”.

So we are now not just saying that our prime minister should be decided by bond traders, but by a foreign leader - the far right authoritarian demagogue destroying democracy in the US.

Labour MPs are clearly now at a point where they have lost any faith in the prime minister, variously briefing that he is “loathed” by them. Starmer’s time is clearly running out.

But who behind this briefing? It is self-evidently Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, the man who ran his 2020 leadership campaign which was designed to dupe the Labour membership, pretending that Starmer was left-wing so he could win, then abandoning his pledges and purge the left.

But here’s the curious thing. Morgan McSweeney did not see Keir Starmer as the man who would lead Labour into victory. His plan - shared by his allies - is that Starmer would do the dirty work: he’d be used to lie to the left and then destroy the left. But then he’d lose the election, but make the party safe for someone like Wes Streeting to take over. Indeed McSweeney and Streeting close allies and friends.

As The Guardian noted a couple of months ago:

On the right of the party, some MPs remain loyal to Wes Streeting as a future leader. “He has 10 times the charisma,” one said. “But I don’t know what his path is without some kind of deal with the left to prevent a contest. He could have done with Angela, maybe. But I don’t know what that really looks like now.”

Allies claim that private polling of the membership is more encouraging for Streeting than might be expected. He is understood to have always been McSweeney’s preferred choice as a successor, and the two men are close. But he also almost lost his seat at the general election, over Gaza.

I’d also note briefings that were made by Labour aides to a book written by Times journalists Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund earlier this year. To quote (“they” here being Starmer’s aides):

Occasionally they even spoke of their leader as if he were a useful idiot. Said one, referring to the driverless Docklands Light Railway that wound its way through east London: “Keir’s not driving the train. He thinks he’s driving the train, but we’ve sat him at the front of the DLR.”

Starmer’s team see him as a “useful idiot”, a convenient frontman for their faction. It is very clear that McSweeney was behind many of those briefings.

So why then would McSweeney so desperately come to the rescue of a clearly finito Starmer, who he never wanted as prime minister, whilst trashing Wes Streeting, the man he’s close to wants to be prime minister? Why would he do this the evening before Wes Streeting was due to go on a TV round, which he knows his friend and ally would use to his advantage? And why do it the evening before Prime Minister’s Questions when it would so obviously humiliate and damage Starmer?

Commentators here have suggested that’s because it forces Streeting to express his loyalty to the prime minister, and thus destroys his plot. But in actual fact this whole story has bolstered Streeting, enabling him to go round studios presenting himself as a better alternative to Starmer while also pretending to be above the fray.

Well - you don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist here to join the dots and suggest that maybe - just maybe - what Morgan McSweeney was really trying to do here was to bolster Wes Streeting. Because that is the net result of what has happened.

And I’d also note that Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Mayor who has positioned himself on the soft left, is on manoeuvres. McSweeney would rather hack his own legs off than let Burnham become leader. But he undoubtedly feels it’s a race against time - because Burnham isn’t in parliament right now, but a by election in Greater Manchester could change all that. So surely it’s better to get Wes Streeting in sooner rather than later, from his perspective?

The argument against this is it has blown up in McSweeney’s face. There’s now loud demands to get rid of him. But he knows Starmer is going to sink, and he’s going to go down with him. Any plausible successor won’t keep him. But is there at least a plausible scenario where a Prime Minister Wes Streeting could “send for McSweeney” in 6-12 months time? Is that not at least McSweeney’s best bet?

It has been put to me that Shabana Mahmood is McSweeney’s preferred candidate, with politics closer to his. Given Mahmood’s lack of charisma - alas, a drawback she shares with almost all of her colleagues - and lack of progressive vision, you have to wonder what the attraction. But even if this is so, the current scenario has damaged Starmer and made an impending leadership more likely.

You might wonder how Streeting could possibly win the Labour membership. Many commentators have noted he’s been posturing left recently - for example, on Palestine and even praising the triumph of Zohran Mamdani in New York. Clearly these are cynical ruses.

But it’s also notable that he praised the newly elected Lucy Powell in his media round. Powell won on a supposedly ‘soft left’ platform, showing dissatisfaction with Starmerism from the grassroots.

PoliticsHome also briefs:

Labour MPs have told PoliticsHome that Wes Streeting’s stock has increased among members of the Parliamentary Labour Party, particularly its soft left, after No 10 briefed that Keir Starmer was vulnerable to a leadership challenge by the Health Secretary.

The so-called “soft left” would have to be gullible, naive, insincere idiots to strike a pact with Streeting. Which is why I think it’s entirely plausible that they will strike a pact with Streeting.

Notably on Good Morning Britain - where Streeting desperately tried to keep a straight face - he refused to rule out a leadership bid.

So what are the scenarios? There is an extraordinarily difficult path for Burnham to abandon the Greater Manchester mayoralty and stand for Parliament. Someone would have to vacate a seat. Why would Starmer’s team allow this? The by-election would be a farce, because Burnham would clearly only be standing to topple the leader of his own party. He would have to pretend he wasn’t doing this, which everyone would know was a lie, which would make him look snakey and dishonest, damaging his brand - and he is the only electorally popular Labour leadership candidate right now. He would also have to be sure that he stood in a seat that Reform UK wouldn’t win - and you wouldn’t be able to bet on that. It would be a mess.

Could another ‘soft left’ candidate stand as a caretaker, and allow Burnham back in? Well, it would become PM musical chairs, as it was with the Tories. Would such a candidate definitely defeat Streeting if they clearly weren’t good enough to be a lasting prime minister? Would they decide that actually they don’t want to be a caretaker after all once they win? Would Starmer really stand in a contest, as his allies have briefed, and what would that mean for the party?

The bottom line is that the real problem here isn’t Starmer. It’s the Labour Right. They have no vision relevant for the Britain of 2025. They haven’t had a relevant coherent vision for a very long time. If you’re a Labour MP who thinks that because Streeting can crack more jokes on TV, that will fix everything, you are simply in denial. If Streeting is such a great communicator, why are his personal ratings bad?

Starmer’s project was always based on deceit and duplicity - without any meaningful answers to the problems of a country in crisis because of a broken economic model. That’s why it’s falling apart. The question is - will it be Farageism that triumphs as a result, or the left, in the form of Zack Polanski’s Green Party allied to whatever Your Party becomes? Well, you would be unwise to make a bet.