Starmer will set out the battleground for an election amid frantic Tory infighting

Sign up to LabourList’s morning email for everything Labour, every weekday morning.

Keir Starmer had a very good week. After Boris Johnson announced that he would be stepping down last Wednesday, the Labour leader was cleared by the police of any wrongdoing in relation to ‘beergate’ on Friday; the unlikely situation wherein the fate of his leadership hinged on the outcome of an investigation into whether his beer and poppadom fell within the Covid rules was finally drawn to a close. Since then, the number of Tories seeking to replace Johnson has ballooned and the leadership contest is ramping up for a particularly frenzied ten days. Just over a week ago, much of the chat had been of a ‘summer of discontent’, with commentators rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of rifts between Labour and the unions – now, the focus is on a summer of Tory infighting.

Confidence boosted, Starmer will today take aim at his potential opponents for Downing Street. He will use a speech this morning to highlight the “fantasy economics” of the Conservative leadership candidates displayed over the weekend. “The contenders have made more than £200bn of unfunded spending commitments. Let that sink in. That’s more than the annual budget of the NHS, splurged onto the pages of the Sunday papers, without a word on how it’ll be paid for,” the Labour leader will say. And he will savage the “hypocrisy” of the Tory hopefuls, who are now frantically trying to say that they in fact opposed the tax rises they voted for during Johnson’s premiership.

More importantly, the speech will see Starmer pivot from this withering assessment of the Tory leadership contest to announce that Labour plans to fight the next election on growing the economy. He will tell those watching that no plan from his party will go uncosted, and set out the three priorities his government would seek to tackle: “Only Labour can reboot our economy and end the cost-of-living crisis. Only Labour can revitalise our public services and re-energise our communities. Only Labour can unite the country and clean up politics.”

The next couple of week will see the Tories consumed by blue-on-blue action. The Conservative backbench 1922 committee, which sets the timetable and rules for Tory leadership elections, will meet today to set the terms of this contest. We expect to know the details around 7pm. Katie has done a quick explainer on how Tories pick their leaders, but essentially we know that they are hoping to narrow down the (many) hopefuls to two before parliamentary recess starts on July 21st – after which the two remaining candidates will be put to the Conservative membership.

Starmer faces both a challenge and an opportunity. With Johnson on his way out, the Labour leader can no longer rely on juxtaposing his political brand of honesty and decency against the Prime Minister – a tactic he has reaped the benefits of over the past few months. The challenge will be to set out the case for a Labour government, in favour of continued Tory rule. But, amid a vacuum of leadership on the other side of the aisle and the chaotic jostling between rival Tories, there is now space to set out this alternative vision. Today’s speech looks to be the start of this – seeing the Labour leader building on his political brand of honesty, and applying it to the battleground on which he wants to fight the election: the economy.

Sign up to LabourList’s morning email for everything Labour, every weekday morning.