48 Britain The EconomistFebruary 29th 2020
J
eremy corbyn’s election as leader of the Labour Party in 2015
was an early warning that the populist virus was spreading to the
Anglo-Saxon world. The next few years saw Donald Trump win the
White House, Britain vote to leave the eu, and, after three years of
gridlock, Boris Johnson take over the Conservative Party on a pro-
mise of getting Brexit done “do or die”. Could Mr Corbyn’s retire-
ment from the leadership on April 4th bring about another big
change in politics?
The populist fires are burning brighter than ever in the United
States, where Democratic activists love Bernie Sanders for the
same reasons that Corbynistas loved Mr Corbyn, and with the
same disregard for their hero’s electability. But the fires seem to be
dying down in Britain. The latest YouGov/Sky poll of Labour Party
members shows Sir Keir Starmer, a former barrister and director of
public prosecutions, beating Rebecca Long-Bailey, a left-winger
who is his principal rival for the leadership, by 53% to 31% of first-
preference votes.
Sir Keir is the polar opposite of the charismatic populists who
bestride much of the world. People who know him agree on two ba-
sic facts. The first is that he is a thoroughly decent human being—a
family man with none of the hauteur that can afflict prominent
politicians. The second is that he’s very serious. The most common
words used to describe him are competent, credible, diligent, cau-
tious and even boring.
His position as front-runner suggests that it is possible to re-
cover from even a serious dose of populism. Pessimists have wor-
ried that populism is self-reinforcing, that converts respond to de-
feat not by moderating their position but by demanding madder
music and stronger wine. But the party is clearly sobering up after
its catastrophic defeat in December. More than 100,000 people
have joined or re-joined since the election, in part to have a say
over the next leader, and many long-standing members, including
prominent Corbynistas such as Paul Mason, have concluded that
winning elections matters more than ideological purity. Sir Keir is
only one of a new wave of moderates. On February 6th Liam Byrne,
a one-time Blairite, defeated two left-wing candidates, backed by
Momentum and big unions, to win the party’s nomination for
mayor of the West Midlands.SirKeir’sleadalsosuggests that British politics will be config-
ured differently from American politics. While America, if Mr
Sanders wins the Democratic nomination, will see a competition
between two forms of populism, in Britain a populist prime min-
ister will square up against a technocrat. If politics is best when it
is a study in contrasts, then Britain is in for a feast.
Boris Johnson and Sir Keir could hardly be more different. Mr
Johnson was born into the heart of the British establishment. Sir
Keir is the embodiment of the meritocracy. His father was a tool-
maker and his mother a nurse who gave up work because she con-
tracted a rare disease that eventually paralysed her. Sir Keir was the
only one of four siblings to pass the 11-plus and was the first mem-
ber of his family to go to university. Mr Johnson is a charismatic
politician who can light up a room with his presence. Sir Keir has
cultivated an air of high seriousness which verges on dullness. Mr
Johnson is a big-picture man who can capture the mood of the
times with a single phrase (“Get Brexit done”) but who is often
weak on detail, sometimes with catastrophic consequences. Sir
Keir is a forensic lawyer who masters his briefs.
Sir Keir’s approach to winning the nomination has been a study
in careful triangulation. He has gone out of his way to praise both
Tony Blair and Mr Corbyn. “Don’t trash the last Labour government
and don’t trash the last four years,” is a mantra. He has surrounded
himself with people from all sides of the party, including Simon
Fletcher, a former chief of staff to Mr Corbyn, and Jenny Chapman,
a former vice-chair of the Blairite pressure group, Progress. By
couching his politics in vague terms—he wants to be both “radical”
and “relevant”, for example—he has given himself maximum free-
dom of manoeuvre.
While it is hard to define what Sir Keir stands for politically, it is
clear what he isn’t: a populist. He personifies the “blob” that popu-
lists accuse of frustrating the will of the people. He is a leading hu-
man-rights lawyer who has not been afraid to take on even the
most unpopular cases. In 2008 he won one on behalf of two terro-
rist suspects that led to control orders—restrictions on the liberty
of unconvicted people—being declared unlawful.
Being dull will not by itself turn Sir Keir into a winner. Compe-
tence is compelling only in pursuit of a goal. He needs to articulate
a vision of the future and to acquire—or reveal—a killer instinct.
His first test will be whether he has the courage to deny Ms Long-
Bailey the shadow chancellorship and give it to somebody from
the right of the party, such as Yvette Cooper.
But his seriousness may prove an asset. The world may lose pa-
tience with the larger-than-life personalities of populist leaders. A
Trump-Sanders match-up for the American presidency will ex-
haust normal people’s appetites for bellowing and finger-jabbing.
A hard Brexit next January, accompanied by queues of lorries at
ports and empty shelves, may confront voters with the conse-
quences of Mr Johnson’s “do or die” rhetoric. A coronavirus pan-
demic would put a premium on diligence and expertise.
The last time Labour elected a leader who personified cautious
competence was in 1935. Winston Churchill, Mr Johnson’s great
hero, and his superior in flamboyance among other traits, dis-
missed Clement Attlee as a modest man with much to be modest
about. Aneurin Bevan, the leader of the left, said that “things hap-
pened to him. He never did anything.” But during his 20 years as
leader Attlee brought the party from the socialist wilderness into
the mainstream, beat Churchill in 1945 and led one of the 20th cen-
tury’s great reforming governments. History is made by colourless
men just as much as colourful ones. 7Bagehot The man who dares to be dull
If Labour elects Sir Keir Starmer, it will be embracing the Anglosphere’s first post-populist