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Whispers about Starmer’s future are growing louder after Waspi.
It’s been a long year in politics, but it’s easy to wonder if you’ve accidentally fallen into a time machine and transported yourself back a few months given the whispers in Westminster corridors this week.
“He’s a nice guy, he’s just not very political… he can’t see the bear trap until he’s fallen into it and by then it’s too late”.
“It would do him good to spend some time in the tea room with his MPs instead of flying around the world on his private plane.”
“He’s just not really in touch with how people around the country feel – he doesn’t really get it. How can he?”
If you think you’ve heard it all before, you have. And so have I. These are the things MPs and Westminster watchers were whispering about Rishi Sunak at the end of his time in office. The chief concern was his lack of political judgement and a creeping sense that he just wasn’t very good at politics.
Fast forward six months or so and here we are again, but this time, Labour MPs are lamenting the lack of political foresight from their leader Keir Starmer, and wondering increasingly loudly whether the project can survive the next five years.
This week, the decision not to award compensation to the Waspi women, who have been fighting against the way changes to their pension age were communicated by a previous government, has sparked even greater concern.
Aides are also tearing their hair out over Starmer’s refusal or inability to let voters see who he really is. Again, we’ve heard this one before. In the dying days of the Sunak administration, his closest team begged him to just be himself. “If only people could see the real Rish, they would know he was driven by all the right things,” aides used to tell journalists – before another interview in which Sunak would dash their hopes of ever being able to show the man behind the expensive suits.
It may seem trivial in this new context – Labour has a huge majority, there is no appetite for another election nor really a means to make one happen. The Tories aren’t ready for one and despite protestations to the contrary, nor is Nigel Farage’s Reform.
But that doesn’t mean the risk for the new government isn’t high, especially after another week of turmoil which has left vast swathes of Labour MPs wondering how exactly they can defend the decision not to compensate Waspi women, despite senior Labour figures having previously pledged to support them, as they all head home for Christmas.
The faces on the Labour benches behind the Prime Minister at PMQs this week as he appeared to blame Waspi women for not paying enough attention to announcements about the pension changes at the time were a sight to behold. Christmas cheer was in distinct short supply and the slumped shoulders of those on the front bench prove the old mantra that opposition is much easier than being in charge.
There are now reports that up to 100 MPs could back an opposition vote against the government’s decision on the Waspi women, to put pressure on minister to change their minds. In reality this would mean little – any vote would not be binding. But numbers like this show even with a hefty majority if Labour MPs feel strongly enough, they could make his life difficult, both in the chamber and crucially in the press.
This isn’t just backbench froth: there’s a fundamental risk here because these decisions hit close to Labour hearts. MPs are starting to ask themselves if they can stand in front of their constituents under the red banner at all, so big are the compromises they’re being asked to make. They might be able to swallow them if they believed their leader felt just as pained, but the creeping fear is that he doesn’t – because he’s not as red as they are.
This is a significant risk that Starmer seems unable to recognise. His MPs, many new and having never faced this level of public scrutiny, have already burned through political capital in their constituencies over removing the universal Winter Fuel Payment. Lots found defending this policy incredibly tough and felt hung out to dry by a Number 10 operation which provided little context or cover for the furious reaction they faced in their constituencies.
The Budget brought more pain, as have decisions not to reverse the two-child benefit cap and questions over how fair it was to promise no tax rises but then hike tax on small businesses immediately on entering office. The context about the economic situation may help the logical argument, but the emotional one has been largely neglected.
Labour swept into government on a promise of change, but it was more than that. It was also a promise not to be the Tories, who the party holds responsible for all the very worst things that happened to the country over the last 14 years.
Yet the reality of Government has hit and suddenly some of the decisions the Tories made, and those they dodged for political expediency, start to look much wiser. There is a reason the Conservatives are the most successful election-winning party in the world. It makes political sense not to pay the Waspi women – it’s the same calculation Rishi Sunak himself made.
But logic isn’t enough to govern well. It takes heart as well as head to keep a party on track and a country united and some MPs fear having pragmatists like Rachel Reeves and Starmer in high office is a recipe for grassroots disaster.
Pragmatism will only get you so far, especially if you’re a Labour politician. The movement is a collective bound together by values, not simple political logic. The danger for Starmer is his party is starting to ask whether he’s really red to the core, or if in fact he is – like Sunak was deemed to be in the end – a good man driven by the desire to serve, but devoid of any political stripes under the expensive suit.
