He has seen how his ability to promise one thing to one crowd before taking a contradictory stance on the same matter has allowed him first to take back the Labour Party from the Corbynites and secondly to win the 2024 general election. What he had perhaps not anticipated – until recently at least – was that his strength could also be a weakness once in power.
Similarly, his tough immigration speech earlier this month seemed to be driven not by conviction but by public opinion. Of course, voters want politicians who listen to them. But they only believe that the politician is going to do what they say if they’re making the announcements for a better reason than political expediency.
It’s not just voters who do not appreciate Starmer’s pragmatism as much as he does. The recent slew of letters from Labour MPs about welfare and immigration policies should not come as a surprise at all.
A minister once told me that the only time they really felt their leader was fully human, even in private, was when he was talking about the importance of family, something that seems to make Starmer slightly shiny-eyed with emotion in a way that few other topics do. Once again, this is really not how most Labour MPs function. Politics itself is an emotional thing for them.
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This explains the level of brazenness among Labour MPs now. Far from being robotically loyal “Starmtroopers”, they are increasingly vocal in their critique of the direction of the Government. They have probably also been more influenced than they realise by the years of mayhem that preceded their party entering government.
Recent attempts to crack down on WhatsApp dissent haven’t worked very well either: though people in WhatsApp groups do undoubtedly stir one another up, they don’t stop being unhappy at the moment a group is turned into a broadcast-only channel for official messages from the whips.
Isabel Hardman is assistant editor of ‘The Spectator’ magazine
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