How Starmer's exit could revive the British left

The political tsunami created by the release of the Epstein files continues to claim political careers. From Hollywood directors, to former French ministers, to the crowned heads of Europe, reputations are being swept away.

Nowhere is this more true than in the UK. No member of the royal family has been so dramatically disowned as the former Prince Andrew since the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936.

Nor has the House of Lords and the Labour Party seen any recent disgrace quite as complete as that of Peter Mandelson, now revealed as having peddled secret government information to the convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. 

The tidal wave has now reached the doors of 10 Downing Street, claiming the career of the so-called genius behind the Starmer project, Morgan McSweeney. Such is the force of public disgust that the prime minister himself is battling to hang on to his job.

But the Epstein files debacle, and the appointment of Mandelson as US ambassador alone, would never have plunged Keir Starmer into this depth of crisis. A prime minister with a landslide election victory only a year and a half ago, and a rock-solid Commons majority, should have been able to ride this out.

The reason why Starmer might be having terminal difficulties is that his popularity was shot long before the Epstein files were released. His personal ratings, and those of the Labour Party, have been nose-diving for months. 

A large part of the reason for that is the disastrous policy choices that Starmer and his chancellor, Rachel Reeves, have been making - many of which have played so badly that they resulted in screeching government U-turns.

Driving out the left

We now hear very little of the sycophantic coverage, common in the mainstream media when Starmer succeeded former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, that praised Starmer’s “forensic mind”. 

It has become clearer to many more people that Starmer only really had one skill, and that was his ability and enthusiasm for driving the left out of the Labour Party, or marginalising those socialists who remained. His wider political attributes have proved negligible to non-existent.

So will the left be able to revive now that Starmer’s days seem numbered? That question has different answers, depending on which section of the left we are talking about.

How Starmer has killed Labour's left wing

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First, let’s take the centre-left of the Labour Party. This barely-left-at-all group has been happy to participate in the Starmer project, or at its most radical, sit on its hands and wait for Starmerism to run its course. 

Now, its two best-known representatives, Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham, are attempting to position themselves as critics of Starmer. Rayner, still under investigation by tax authorities for her property dealings, would still be deputy leader if she had not been forced to resign. Burnham was blocked by Starmer from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election, because only if he returned as an MP could he mount an effective challenge to Starmer.

So these centrist critics of Starmer face difficulties in launching an effective challenge - though, paradoxically, those problems may disappear the longer Starmer holds on. But even if they, or someone of a similar political complexion, were to succeed Starmer, how much would it mean?

Certainly, the language might change, some of the more objectionable Reform-friendly strategy might go, some of the most egregious attacks on working people might be dumped - but it would fundamentally be Starmerism without Starmer. Any honeymoon for a new leader would be short-lived, and the gap between Labour and a disaffected working class would remain as wide as ever.

Breaking the cycle

Secondly, further left, the Corbynites who have remained in the party must now think that the darkest hour of the anti-left witch-hunt has passed. MPs John McDonnell and Richard Burgon have a freedom to operate greater than at any point since Starmer took over. It’s hardly imaginable that Starmer could again remove the whip from Campaign Group MPs, as he did in the past. 

Conversely, the fall of Starmer will create a larger audience for leftist Labour ideas than at any time since the effective expulsion of Corbyn. Of course, the Labour left will be nowhere near the glory days of Corbyn’s leadership, but neither will they be the shunned outcasts of the Starmer era. 

What they are able to make of this opportunity is another matter. If Labour’s next leader continues the Starmer cycle of disappointing Labour’s supporters, then the project of capturing the party for socialism may look as distant as ever, if not absolutely pointless.

The left can benefit from Starmer's failure, but a dynamic extra-parliamentary movement is essential to do that

In addition, the prospects for the Labour left will partly be determined by the success or failure of the socialist projects to the left of Labour.

Currently, the Greens are absorbing a lot of the energy of those who want an alternative to Starmer’s Labour Party. Leader Zack Polanski has successfully repositioned the Greens as a radical alternative to Labour, benefitting from the fact that, in yet another massive tactical error, Starmer has mistaken Reform as the only threat to Labour.

How far beyond Polanski’s leadership the transformation of the Greens goes, however, is open to doubt. The Greens have a patchy record of engagement with the anti-war movement, few organic links with the trade union movement, and are weakly represented in many working-class communities. A substantial section of the membership is closer to liberalism than to socialism. The Greens are a long way from being a programmatically constituted socialist party.

Success for the Greens will intensify the pressures on them from the media and the establishment. Compromises against which they have little ideological defence will be more common, and the inability to think beyond electoral calculations will prove a serious weakness.

Spine of resistance

For the left beyond the Greens, essentially the Corbynite left and the radical left, the weakness of Your Party is a serious problem. The fall of Starmer should have been a decisive moment for Your Party, when it could have caught the wind now filling the sails of the Greens and emerged as a serious left-of-Labour alternative. But the infighting at the top of Your Party has seen it becalmed, draining initial support at giddying speed.

The good news for the left is that the Your Party project is not the only way that electoral challenges to Labour can be made. Indeed, the successful election of four pro-Gaza MPs and Corbyn himself preceded the formation of Your Party. Other local campaigns were also effective in getting councillors elected or running close to sitting MPs. In the upcoming May elections, a number of such radical independents will stand, with varying prospects of success.

Your Party's moment is now or never

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This process of political polarisation will not be halted because of the difficulties in Your Party, although it may take a different form. It will still be driven by the cost-of-living crisis, the collapse of the welfare state, and the deeply unpopular foreign policy stances of the British establishment in all mainstream parties.

It will draw sustenance, as the previous incarnation of Corbynism did, from extra-parliamentary movements. These movements, rather than electoral projects, will in all likelihood remain the spine of resistance to the new rearmament-driven austerity to which the entire European ruling class, including all mainstream parties in the UK, are committed.

The failure of Starmer’s career is a monument to the unpopularity of that project. The Epstein scandal exposed a ruling elite that is contemptuous of the lives of ordinary people, and that believes itself not bound by the rules that the rest of us obey. 

Starmer’s demise, once again, shows that the political centre cannot hold. The populist right is vying to fill that void. The left can benefit from Starmer’s failure, but a dynamic extra-parliamentary movement is essential to do that - and only an electoral alternative that relates to this movement will have a long-term chance of success.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.