Despite Labour’s huge majority, the UK government looks fragile
BYthe time you read this, the man who took Labour to a landslide victory less than two years ago might be gone. At press time, Keir Starmer’s premiership is on life support. After months of crisis and missteps, he’s lost his second chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, leaving Downing Street brain dead, and his umpteenth director of communications, Tim Allan.
His agenda’s now controlled by backbench MPs, who remain convinced that if only taxes were hiked further on the rich, there’d be an endless pot of money to fund their pet causes, and rebel against all and any politically painful choices. But external threats abound too. Here are four trends in British politics giving the government migraines.
If there was ever a parliamentary by-election from Starmer’s nightmares, it’s the one coming up in East Manchester on February 26. Roughly split between Muslims and students, and white working class, the hard-left Greens and poll-topping Reform both spy a chance to grab the seat off Labour. On-the-ground reports suggest little love for Labour but a pretty even three-way split. The kicker is, it would have been an easy Labour win if only Starmer hadn’t blocked the popular mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, from standing; Burnham makes no secret of his ambition to replace Starmer, so Labour’s ruling committee blocked his candidacy.
One insider has described the prospect of a Green victory as “deadly”; it destroys Labour’s narrative as the only left-wing alternative to Reform. Labour is hemorrhaging from the left to the Greens, whose telegenic new leader, Zack Polanski, believes there’s no limit to state resources. Because the government borrows from the state’s central bank, you see, it’s essentially borrowing from itself (most government debt actually comes from the fiscally hawkish international markets), and would tax billionaires simply as a moral imperative and not for the revenue. He’s also snapped up Muslims who believe Labour’s been too pro-Israel (!), and once rock-solid urban seats are looking dicey for Labour.
Create a free account to keep reading.
