For much of Keir Starmer’s life, Labour leaders have often found themselves delivering ‘make-or-break’ speeches at their party’s annual conference – and they have generally turned out to be neither. Unlike in the Conservative party, Labour tends to stick by its leaders between general elections, however hopeless they might be. The only time MPs tried to unseat an incumbent, Jeremy Corbyn in 2016, it did not turn out well for the plotters, one of whom was, of course, Starmer.
Yet despite that record of loyalty to embattled leaders, with Labour trailing the Conservatives in the polls, recent rather iffy by-election results, and a botched reshuffle raising questions about his authority, there was a weary inevitability that the Labour leader’s speech would enjoy the familiar ‘make-or-break’ billing.
Starmer’s failure to transform how the party elected its leader on the eve of conference as well as rows over nationalisation and the minimum wage which, in the case of the latter, led to a resignation from the Shadow Cabinet, only upped the ante.
‘Starmerism’ remains a work in progress and much remains to be elaborated
In the end, it was a speech that was more make than break: Starmer lives to fight another day and will hope all the fighting will now be with Boris Johnson rather than the Corbynites in his own party. For the speech confirmed how far, highlighted by some truly ineffectual heckling, the far left is in the descendant.
Even before he got into his stride, the Labour leader pointedly welcomed the former MP Louise Ellman back into the party. She had resigned in 2019 in protest at the previous leader’s failure to adequately address evidence of antisemitism amongst his own supporters. If Ellman was greeted by much applause that was as nothing compared to the prolonged standing ovation which greeted Starmer as, towards his speech’s end, he listed the achievements of the New Labour government in levelling up Britain. This was ostensibly meant to exemplify that Labour is a party of deeds as opposed to Johnsonian guff. But so far as many in the hall were concerned, it was also two fingers up to those on the far left who see the period 1997-2010 as a betrayal of socialism. As a result, it is likely the exodus of those who flocked to Labour, thanks to Corbyn’s promise to turn the party into an anti-imperialist social movement, will now accelerate. And that will only strengthen Starmer’s hand.
Corbynites would certainly not have appreciated Starmer’s homily to those gathered in the conference hall that if they wanted Labour to build the ‘good society’ the party needed to persuade voters it could build a ‘strong economy’ – and that meant having a good relationship with business as well as the trade unions. Labour, he said, had to be ‘serious’ – one of Starmer’s favourite words – and by the time of the next election be able to present itself to voters as alternative government, one they could trust – as opposed to the one that went into the 2019 campaign with promises many did not believe. Within the wider party this particular penny has begun to drop: a decade in opposition tends to make most Labour members pragmatic.
To those outside the conference hall – by far the most important audience for Starmer’s speech – he said a dynamic economy required a fairer society. How far those in the cities whose support Labour needs to retain and the rest, in those deprived northern and midlands towns who went for Johnson in 2019, take to that message remains to be seen.
As with previous addresses since becoming leader, much of Starmer’s speech was focused on the latter group. Hence his emphasis on the importance of his own working-class family background to his own approach to politics. Taking this opportunity to tell those voters who did not see his touching interview with Piers Morgan earlier in the year, Starmer’s tool maker father and nurse mother took centre stage in his address.
Significantly crime also featured heavily, for here the Labour leader could trade on his experience as director of the Crown Prosecution Service and make the case that it was now an issue his party could take back from the Conservatives. Starmer also made a clever pitch for his assertion that Labour was now the patriotic party, by reminding his audience how Conservatives had backed those who booed England players taking the knee.
If there was some humour much of the speech was devoted to outlining Starmer’s ‘seriousness’, as someone who wanted to focus on fixing concrete problems, and address injustice in practical ways and not just parrot slogans. This allowed him to implicitly criticise the Corbyn years while also attacking his main enemy: Boris Johnson, who he described – not as ‘scum’ – but perhaps much more damningly as a ‘trivial man’, all words and no action, unable to fill up a car with petrol let alone level up a country.
Starmer outlined his ambitions for education, the NHS, social care, and Britain’s place in the world in some detail and much length. But it was his basic personal qualities that he wanted to convey: depicting himself as a serious figure, from a humble background, a man of achievement, a reasonable radical who could be trusted to follow through on his promises.
As with Starmer’s pamphlet The Road Ahead, published last week – and which anticipated much of the speech’s content – the speech was long and serious and rambled a bit, with the most excitement being provided by his hecklers.
‘Starmerism’ remains a work in progress and much remains to be elaborated – notably his cheeky quick claim that he, unlike Johnson, can make Brexit work. But his presentation of himself and his beliefs had the ring of authenticity, emerging as boring but dependable, the kind of man you could take home to your mother – someone in stark contrast to Boris Johnson who Amber Rudd once famously said was not the kind of man a woman would want to drive her home.
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