‘Why Keir Starmer should embrace populism ahead of the next election’

According to Tom Baldwin, Keir Starmer’s biographer, the Labour Prime Minister, “likes to think decisions through and sometimes changes his mind, but he has also been breathtakingly ruthless”.

Baldwin’s implication is that Starmer is slow to act but once he does, he is decisive and, usually, successful.

Given the first six months endured by his government, which have seen Starmer’s personal ratings tumble to below those of Nigel Farage, and his party’s support fall behind the Conservatives, many Labour members are likely hoping for some breathtaking ruthlessness from Number 10.

The signs are that Starmer is going to disappoint them. There is talk of an upcoming big speech in which the Prime Minister will announce a ‘reset’ but this looks like it will amount to just a clarification of the current course.

After all Starmer was recently quoted in the Financial Times as telling colleagues:  “I will be judged by how the country feels in five years’ time, not at Christmas”.

This response to the hostile reaction to many of his government’s measures is certainly consistent with Starmer’s declared vision for politics during his premiership. The question however is: how realistic is that vision?

Starmer’s vision

As the Labour leader told his party’s 2023 conference, “politics should tread lightly on people’s lives” and his government would be one “that takes care of the big questions so working people have the freedom to enjoy what they love”.

With Labour in power, Conservative chaos would end, the populist beast be tamed, and tranquillity return to Westminster as Starmer got on with building the foundations for a decade of national renewal. And that meant, Starmer told Britons once he had been installed in Downing Street, he wanted his government to ‘be judged by our actions, not by our words’.

It is only slightly unfair to say that Starmer’s is a vision of politics with the politics left out.

READ MORE: Starmer poised to unveil ‘measurable milestones’ in Labour’s missions for government

But it is definitely at odds with a political culture in which fevered partisans scream across social media, a disputatious commentariat desperately seek click-bait and ostensibly serious news organisations echo rather than interrogate divisive populist tropes. Starmer’s is a reassuringly old-fashioned vision, harking back to a world before the banking crisis, austerity and Brexit.

Indeed, he only lacks Stanley Baldwin’s pipe to evoke a way of doing politics already crumbling by 2008, one in which the public gave their trusted political leaders a doctor’s mandate, freeing them to get on with the job of governing until having to face the mild inconvenience of a general election.

A flawed vision

If Labour had done better in July, winning votes as successfully as it won seats, Starmer might have possessed the platform for this kind of politics.

Even then, given our toxic media and the deep-set problems that beset many Britons, that would have been a stretch. But with the support of just 33.7% of those who voted – a share that would normally have resulted in a crashing Labour defeat – that was never going to be possible.

For Starmer’s is a negative rather than positive mandate: Labour won its Commons majority less for what it was and more for what it was not.

In the context in which Labour is now governing – rather than in the one Starmer would like it to be – its approach, even putting aside clangers like means testing the pensioners’ winter fuel allowance has been found wanting.

Starmer’s hope that voters would calmly wait a decade before things got appreciably better and blame the Conservatives for any continuing mess rather than Labour for not clearing it up has been well and truly shattered.

READ MORE: Now every cabinet minister was mostly state-educated between 11 and 16

When Morgan McSweeney replaced Sue Gray as Starmer’s Chief of Staff two months ago many expected the government’s communications would improve. They have not.

For that to happen Starmer must abandon his vision of politics, at least for now. He needs to recognise that a government – especially today – will to be judged on its actions and its words.

As the Democrats found out in November, without the right words to frame those actions voters might misinterpret or even ignore them. And in looking for those words Labour has to recognise, indeed embrace, its precarious electoral position and act as an opposition and a government. That also means adopting the populist rhetorical playbook.

The need to embrace populism

Labour has traditionally presented itself as a way of reconciling differences, to unite rather than divide.

This is a noble aspiration – one we see in the claim that Starmer’s is a pro-worker and pro-business government. But in trying to please everybody, in avoiding enemies, who are Labour’s friends today?

There are certainly precious few in Sharon Graham’s Unite or the CBI. In contrast the kind of populism that saw Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour do so unexpectedly well in 2017 and powered Farage’s Reform into the Commons in 2024 had clear enemies but as a result keen friends and strong, purposeful identities, something Starmer has always lacked.

If he is unconvinced, Starmer might look to Harold Wilson – who he claims as his favourite Labour leader. In the 1960s Wilson cautiously dipped his toe in populist water, declaring that the energies of working Britons were being held back by an incompetent elite.

According to him the enemy of the people – and so of Labour – was an unproductive upper class preventing a virtuous people from obtaining their rightful reward. It was an approach that helped Labour return to office in 1964 after 13 years in opposition and win a landslide two years later.

Maybe Starmer is right not to change course, perhaps somehow Labour will, thanks to a divided right more than its own efforts, win re-election by default – once again.

Time will tell but time is also running out for a change of course. We are already nearly half a year closer to a general election than we were when Starmer first entered Downing Street.

SIGN UP: Get the best daily roundup and analysis of Labour news and comment in our newsletter

For more from LabourList, follow us on  Threads, Bluesky, X, Facebook,  Instagram or WhatsApp.

• SHARE: If you have anything to share that we should be looking into or publishing about this story – or any other topic involving Labour– contact us (strictly anonymously if you wish) at [email protected]. 
• SUBSCRIBE: Sign up to LabourList’s morning email here for the best briefing on everything Labour, every weekday morning. 
• DONATE: If you value our work, please donate to become one of our supporters here and help sustain and expand our coverage.
• PARTNER: If you or your organisation might be interested in partnering with us on sponsored events or content, email [email protected].