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.
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