‘Serious times call for serious leaders so Starmer must stay’

This serious moment in our politics demands a serious response, serious people, ideas and actions. The disappointing election results demand that lessons are learned and responsibility is taken, as Keir Starmer has done. But the responsibility for a serious response, and the need to call out unseriousness, must be shared more widely.

We must continue to challenge much social media debate about politics, as unserious and sometimes downright false or dangerous, but an area that often escapes scrutiny is the traditional media which believes it merely reports on events, rather than contributing to them.

READ MORE: Which Labour MPs are calling for Starmer to go – and who is still backing PM?

The numerous media interviews I’ve done in the last few days have mainly been framed – by them – through the lens of Keir Starmer being singlehandedly responsible for Labour’s and the country’s woes warranting resignation or a leadership challenge. 

Even much-respected academic and polling ‘guru’ Professor Sir John Curtice veered into unserious political punditry ahead of the recent elections, lending a bit of academic and psephological credibility to hype resulting in this hyperbolic headline in The Independent: Starmer will be forced out of No 10 – it’s just a matter of when and how, top pollster warns. 

The pre-election headlines were versions of ‘Starmer can’t survive election mauling’, yet reality is reasserting itself against the false narrative, with headlines (in The Times online) noting that Starmer has been ‘granted a stay of execution.’ 

Because the Prime Minister isn’t going to resign, or likely face a challenge, the ‘doom-headlining’ is having to adapt further as the day proceeds, particularly given that he brought back into government Gordon Brown as Special Envoy on Global Finance and Cooperation and Harriet Harman as Adviser on Women and Girls. These are the actions of a serious, confident leader, at ease with working with big beasts from yesteryear on the big problems of today and tomorrow. 

Contrast that with the approach of the populists. On international issues, Farage with his sycophancy for Trump, admiration for Putin and donations from an overseas crypto-billionaire. Or Polanski wanting to pull the UK out of NATO. On women and girls, Farage described Andrew Tate as an “important voice.” And the less said about Zack’s previous career the better.

But we in the Parliamentary Labour Party must take our responsibilities seriously at this moment too. The framing of the narrative and terms of the debate by our political opponents and some parts of the media about the success or otherwise of our Keir Starmer and the wider government, is sadly validated by the constant speculation about possible leadership challenges, and that is fuelled in some part by a minority of colleagues.

It’s not the confidence of the bond markets that we should worry about, although they’re important – it’s the confidence of the people. Even if there were a phalanx of contenders who have clearly elucidated their vision for the future of our country, which there aren’t, it would still be wrong to replace the Prime Minister. The people would not take seriously a party that turned on its leader after less than two years, just as the first hurdles are being overcome in dealing with a set of domestic and international challenges that are as big if not bigger than those faced by incoming Labour governments in 1945, 1964 and 1997. They remember the five PMs in six years under the Tories.

There are many reasons why Keir Starmer deserves our support as MPs. I’ve argued recently that we should reflect that without his leadership, there wouldn’t perhaps even be a Labour government to implore to do more and certainly many, many of us wouldn’t have the privilege to serve and through our combined efforts as the Labour movement, bring about so much positive change.

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Yes we need to go further, faster and more boldly, and I argued on LabourList that we need an ‘action this day’ approach. But we must be careful not to do the work of our opponents and their backers among the vested interests – people who fear more than anything else a ‘devastating outbreak of progress’.  We must disprove the stereotype that Labour people often focus loudly and publicly on the 1% of things that we get wrong or which aren’t perfect yet fail to highlight our achievements and strengths. That applies to our approach to the PM. 

We’re talking about the leader of the fifth largest economy of the world, not the president of a debating society. Keir Starmer isn’t an accidental leader, or merely the best of a series of bad choices. He’s the leader who, together with Chancellor Rachel Reeves and his ministers, have got the big judgment calls right on the economy, on public services, on Iran and more besides. 

These are serious times, so let’s get serious and get back to delivering, not debating. Take a lead from the Prime Minister…

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