You can sum up Labour’s problems right now in one word: dishonesty. From start to painful finish, Keir Starmer has been gesturing towards something only to turn his back on it at the first sign of opposition. Covering American politics, I’ve heard derisive laughter at every turn in Washington, DC. It rings across the Atlantic and announces that an empty suit still holds the highest office in the land. This number of U-turns (a count has the prime minister 13) reveals a leader as limp as a windless sail. And most importantly, it shows that Starmer never was honest for his convictions – because surely if he had passionately believed that a certain policy was the essence of the national renewal he promised, then he would have pursued it. Starmer’s investigation is apparently infectious – even his challenger, Wes Streeting, remains mum about his political ambitions, even as Andy Burnham begins his march south.
We have a prime minister who prides himself on protecting human rights only to infringe on our civil liberties, whether those of pensioners tweeting about immigrants or students protesting the destruction of Gaza. He seems to believe in every right except free speech. He promised Labor members he would be Corbyn in a suit, just to clean up anyone to the left of Clive Lewis. He refused to level with the public over the huge welfare bill. He was uninterested in reforming our irrational tax code that doesn’t suit either the middle or working class. This week’s claim that Britain’s milk and honey resides in Brussels flies in the face of his “Take Back Control” speech in January 2023. What better example of Labour’s habit of fighting against voters’ psychological instincts? Panaceas are attractive mirages, simple solutions to complex problems. The reunification movement often looks like a form of elite populism rather than a democratic base. (This does not mean that we should not rejoin the European Union in itselfbut a dose of realism is a necessary corrective to the utopianism currently being projected across the Channel. Perhaps Labor should consider once again that the British do not want to end a thousand years of history, as much as the liberal centers believe.)
Even Starmer’s laudable opposition to America’s Third Gulf War was not as laudable as most people think. Starmer was said to have initially been a supporter of Trump, only for his cabinet to treat him in disapproval. Talk to British officials and they’ll say that Starmer’s position is purely symbolic: the US and British militaries are working together as always. Starmer fell into the right position out of weakness, and even then, the substance beneath the speeches is continuity. You’d think, given the media’s obsession with words rather than deeds, that American planes aren’t flying sorties from British bases day in and day out. His Love actually moment, yes – in that it is a fiction.
We continue: his proceduralism is apolitical and anti-democratic. Delegating decision-making to legal institutions – like relying on a narrow interpretation of international law versus supporting the Gulf War, or siding with the ECtHR on immigration – shuts down justified debate because whatever these quasi-legal institutions declare carries the weight of the rule of law – and you are not against the rule of law! If Tony Blair thought most government should be given to the private sector, then Starmer thinks politics should be decided in the courts. Both deny our MPs agency, removing incentives for them to engage in substantive debate, thereby stripping the British constitution of its democratic core.
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One of the most fantastic examples of dishonesty has been immigration. In a one-off speech in May 2025, Starmer acknowledged the impact that 20 years of mass immigration, forced on an involuntary population, had had on social cohesion, only to backtrack after his choice of words was criticized. Words over action – how appropriate. His concern is for being FrONt to do well, not actually doing it. Now he has handed over leadership on a defining issue of our era to his bolder colleague, Shabana Mahmood. All of which begs the question, again, was Starmer being true to himself when he gave that speech? Or just doing as instructed? We are relentlessly told, as if that qualifies one for the prime ministership, that Starmer is a “decent” man. But doesn’t decency include a modicum of honesty?
This dishonesty extends to his senior team. Before the election, I often spoke to senior Labor members about the contradiction between their fiscal rules, tax promises and spending commitments. It was clear that this would lead to a deadlock. This was not a basis for national renewal. Closed, arrogant and deeply insecure, they did not want to hear the truth. These are not stupid people and therefore it was dishonest. A senior Labor figure admitted to me recently that Rachel Reeves never intended to keep her promise to invest £28 billion in the green economy. It was a cynical ruse, a ploy to keep the left on the sidelines, a pretense at a coherent economic argument that didn’t insist that the only way to be credible was to honor Osborneite relics like Mark Carney and the OBR. To her credit, Reeves has ramped up capital spending and her push for a British AI industry looks promising. But the parameters within which it governs the economy are ill-conceived and thoughtless.
The next question is whether Starmer’s successors have the guts to be honest. The main tasks are to account for the immigration crisis and create the ethnic divide; reforming a nonsensical tax code; ensuring Britain has a sovereign AI capability; taming the extractive predator of American capital; and rebuilding the military to deal with near-external threats. And yet, it seems as if the PLP sees a candidate’s party faction as a proxy for their views on politics. Unfortunately, “soft left”, “hard left” and “Blairite right” are poor shorthand for the kind of political debate the Lab should force itself to have. (This is not a nod between the lines to Streeting – it applies to everyone.) The PLP should be asking which contender will be honest about the problems we face, not which faction they support. Remember that voters don’t care about factional loyalties; they care about what a candidate will do with the great power of the prime minister’s office – what radical action they will take to revive the withered British state. Ideas, leadership and vision matter more than cringeworthy odes to “work values” – a self-defeating idea if I ever heard one.
With all this in mind, the weaknesses and strengths of competing successors stand out. Streeting has the conviction to chip away at some of the bureaucratic boulders that block the British state. In private, he expresses admirable skepticism about the excesses of globalization. But he is wedded to a Blairite view of politics that is out of date. Angela Rayner has gestured toward new economic thinking, but details are always sparse and opportunistic. Burnham has a capacity for leadership that is rare in Westminster, by which I mean a willingness to take up a cause, whatever it may be, and take people with him.
But few have the courage to define a humane and realistic approach to immigration. Even fewer are willing to count our reliance on American capital. No one will call out Britain’s problems for what they are. Who has the capacity to turn a historic majority into a crusading government that will implement the reforms which, for so long, left and right have long known to be the only way to bring Britain back from the brink?
(Further reading: Keir Starmer can end this with dignity)
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