In many ways, Keir Starmer’s makeover of the Labour party has been a deeply conventional project. Since the 1950s, a decade his buttoned-up style would have suited well, the majority of Labour leaders have moved the party rightwards. It’s what the mainstream media and big business usually advise these leaders to do, arguing that a less leftwing Labour is more politically and economically realistic – while not so readily acknowledging that such a party also offers less of a threat to their interests.
Labour’s rightward shifts don’t always work. Neil Kinnock, Jim Callaghan, Harold Wilson and Hugh Gaitskell all led the party to painful defeats. But on 4 July, Starmer’s orthodox approach looks likely to be vindicated, in electoral terms at least.
Amid the feelings of relief that have already been spreading for many months at the prospect of a steady Labour government replacing a reckless Tory one, it’s easy to forget quite how disorienting for many Labour politicians, activists and supporters Starmer’s leadership has actuallybeen. In four years, a lawyer turned MP with limited political skills, working with previously little-known party fixers, has nearly erased his predecessor as leader, abandoned many of his initial pledges and ensured that almost all Labour candidates are loyal to his new regime. Tony Blair’s reshaping of the party in the 1990s, which left room in the cabinet for independent-minded radicals such as Robin Cook, looks almost gentle by comparison.
If you’re desperate for a Labour government and not too squeamish about how that happens, it’s not difficult to approve of the Starmer project in the abstract. But how does the........