26 Britain The Economist April 30th 2022
SirKeir,thecynic
F
or a manwho could be prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer enjoys
a peculiar reputation as a political naïf. The Labour leader was
elected as an mponly in 2015, after a decorated career as a human
rights barrister and a stint as the director of public prosecutions.
By 2020 he was party leader. To his critics, he has the air of a hob
byist who had reached the top of one profession and fancied a go at
another, and who ended up as a potential prime minister due to
circumstance rather than skill. An enjoyably hostile new biogra
phy of Sir Keir by Oliver Eagleton, an editor at the New Left Review,
a socialist journal, offers an alternative view.
In “The Starmer Project”, the political naïf turns into a be
quiffed Machiavelli. On this telling, Sir Keir undermined Jeremy
Corbyn, his hardleft predecessor, as part of a longterm plan to in
stall himself as Labour leader. He campaigned for that job on a
platform of carrying on with Mr Corbyn’s policies. Then, once in
power, Sir Keir organised a ruthless purge of the leftwingers who
had taken control of the party machinery. In Mr Eagleton’s version
of events, Sir Keir is politically rapacious and rather cynical. He
could well be offended. But he should take it as a compliment.
For starters, allegations of plotting protect against Boris John
son’s charge that the Labour leader is cut from the same cloth as
his predecessor. Displaying a weak grasp of Britain’s tailoring heri
tage, the prime minister has labelled Sir Keir as a “Corbynista in a
smart Islington suit”. Sir Keir did, after all, spend three years in Mr
Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, overseeing Labour’s Brexit policy. To his
defenders, Sir Keir had no choice but to serve. Brexit was an exis
tential question at the time; duty called. In Mr Eagleton’s telling,
however, Sir Keir was a wrecker. Agent Starmer tried to undermine
Mr Corbyn’s team from within, pushing the party towards sup
porting a second referendum primarily to position himself as a
potential leader of the party.
Convenience rather than conviction is the better explanation,
and the better alibi, for Sir Keir’s stint under Mr Corbyn. The next
leader of Labour was always likely to be someone who had osten
sibly been loyal to the leftie leader. Although a tranche of Labour
members were hardcore believers, the bulk were moderate social
democrats who liked Mr Corbyn’s proposals of higher public
spending and more public ownership. Anyone who had spent thepreviousfiveyearsattackingMrCorbyn would have had no chance
of succeeding him. Standing on a Corbynite platform of higher
taxes on the very rich and public ownership of utilities, Sir Keir
sauntered to victory.
Upon winning power, however, Sir Keir ditched the bulk of this
programme. More than that, he set about ridding the party of the
leftwingers who had taken over its apparatus. He even removed
the whip from Mr Corbyn, his old boss, after the former leader
played down the rise of antiSemitism on his watch. Chasing left
ies out of the party is performative as well as practical. Others on
the Labour benches avoided serving Mr Corbyn; an element of
overcompensation from Sir Keir was required. Mr Eagleton’s por
trayal of Sir Keir as a bloodsoaked Trotslayer is rather useful.
Cynicism is not the only possible explanation for Sir Keir’s po
litical volteface. One unflattering theory for his flexible political
positions is that he has been “cuckooed”. Cuckooing happens
when wrong ’uns take over the flat of a vulnerable person, turning
it into a drug den or a brothel. In this telling, something similar
has happened to Sir Keir, whose shadow cabinet and advisers are
now drawn from the right of the party. He is reduced to the role of a
hapless pensioner trying to sleep while holdovers from the New
Labour era blast “Things Can Only Get Better” at 3am.
The cynical explanation puts Sir Keir in a much less feeble
light. Grumblings about his leadership emerged during 2021. La
bour had a lousy set of localelection results last year; were ham
mered in a byelection in Hartlepool, a poor coastal town in north
ern England; and clung onto Batley and Spen in west Yorkshire by
only a slim margin. Opponents, particularly on the right of the
party, were circling. Sir Keir changed tack in a bid to stay alive. He
brought in people from the party’s right, such as Yvette Cooper,
and turfed out longstanding advisers. Survival sometimes re
quires a dose of cynicism.
An appreciation of the Labour leader’s ruthless side may also
win over his remaining doubters. Critics of his are found across
the whole party. Although the left see him as a malevolent wreck
er, the right sees Sir Keir as someone who lacks the right political
instincts. But politics is a results business. “If you’re so smart, why
are you so poor?” runs one Russian proverb. “If you’re so good at
politics, why are you not in power?” applies in Westminster. Sir
Keir’s path of reluctant support of Mr Corbyn, to be ditched once in
power, was an option open to all Labour’s pretenders from the
right. But others did not have the nous to seizeit. A backhanded compliment
By doing down Sir Keir, therefore, Mr Eagleton has done him a fa
vour. This is not the first time Corbynites have found themselves
bigging up their enemies. When Theresa May was at her lowest
ebb, Corbynites were among her few defenders. It must have taken
a political genius to defeat Mr Corbyn in the 2017 election, ran
their logic then. There was some truth to this. Mrs May’s strategy
of targeting Leavevoting seats across the Midlands and the North
was broadly right; Mr Johnson followed it closely in the next elec
tion and won a stonking majority.
Likewise, the idea that Sir Keir is a cynical mastermind is a
more comforting one for Corbynites than the possibility that the
former Labour leader was manifestly unsuited to the role. But it is
also a more reassuring tale for Sir Keir’s supporters. A cynical La
bour leader is one who oweshisposition to his own cunning rath
er than circumstance. Heisalsoone that stands a better chance of
becoming prime minister.nBagehot
A new biography paints Keir Starmer as a ruthless opportunist. He should take the compliment