A Warning About Keir Starmer

The Labour leadership election is nearly over, and Keir Starmer is going to win. The polls are clear, the endorsements are stacking up, and the party establishment has coalesced around him. But I’m here to tell you why this is a disaster waiting to happen.

Starmer represents everything that went wrong with New Labour, wrapped up in a slick package and sold as “electability.” He’s the continuity candidate for a politics that gave us austerity, that failed to challenge neoliberalism, that prioritised respectability over principles¹. Look at his record: he spent years trying to overturn the Brexit referendum, showing complete contempt for working-class voters who backed Leave. As Director of Public Prosecutions, he oversaw the prosecution of students and protesters whilst letting bankers walk free². This is the man who’s supposed to represent radical change?

The media coronation has been nauseating to watch. Even supposed left-wing journalists like Paul Mason have bent over backwards to promote Starmer whilst launching bizarre attacks on Rebecca Long-Bailey, obsessing over her Catholic background as if religious faith disqualifies her from left politics³. Mason’s trajectory from radical journalist to establishment cheerleader has been one of the most depressing spectacles of recent years - a perfect example of how the commentariat abandons principles the moment it becomes inconvenient.

What’s particularly galling is how Starmer has positioned himself as the unity candidate whilst systematically undermining everything the left has built over the past five years. He’s made all the right noises about continuing progressive policies, but watch what happens once he’s in post. The same advisers who destroyed Ed Miliband’s leadership are already circling⁴. The same donors who funded Blair’s wars are opening their chequebooks. The same MPs who spent four years undermining the party leadership are suddenly Starmer’s biggest supporters.

Mark my words: within two years, he’ll have abandoned every progressive policy that’s been developed, alienated the membership that built this movement, and returned us to the triangulation and focus-group politics that left millions behind. The Green New Deal will become “net zero by whenever.” Wealth taxes will disappear in favour of “business-friendly policies.” Public ownership will be quietly dropped for “pragmatic partnerships with the private sector.”

But what is “electability” anyway? We’re living through the age of populism, where authenticity trumps technocracy and voters want to know whose side you’re on⁵. Boris Johnson didn’t win because he looked prime ministerial - he won because he tapped into something visceral with “Get Brexit Done” whilst Labour tied itself in knots over second referendums. Johnson and Cummings understood that politics had fundamentally shifted, that the old rules about respectability and moderation no longer applied.

Starmer represents exactly the opposite instinct - a return to the failed politics of triangulation when what’s needed is clarity about whose interests you serve. He might look “electable” in the traditional sense, but if he gets into power surrounded by the same advisers who thought Ed Miliband should carve policies into stone tablets, he’ll achieve about as much as a chocolate teapot in a heatwave. The people around him have the political ambition of a damp lettuce and the strategic vision to match.

The establishment wants Starmer precisely because they know he’ll restore their control over the party’s direction. They’ve learnt from 2015 - they won’t make the mistake of letting the membership choose again. This leadership election will be the last time ordinary party members have any real say in Labour’s direction.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you when he inevitably disappoints everyone who believed he could be different. The signs are all there if you’re willing to see them.