Sensible statesman or 'never here Keir'? Starmer buffeted by a year of headwinds

Not since Winston Churchill took power just as France was falling to Nazi Germany in 1940 has a British prime minister entered Downing Street to face such an onslaught of international turbulence.

When Keir Starmer took power after victory in the July 4 election last year, both Germany and France’s leaders were politically emasculated and US president Joe Biden’s authority was tumbling. Then Donald Trump was elected to the White House and the political landscape was in disarray.

In his first year in office, Mr Starmer, 62, has had to use Britain’s modest authority on the international stage to find some form of normality amid wars in Europe and the Middle East.

Weakened

But the sensible global statesman persona has come at some cost, with a neglected domestic front weakening his authority, which in turn could damage his international standing.

Even his own MPs are muttering about “never here Keir” due to the machinegun diary entries that have sent him abroad. That unintentional absence, on top of several misguided policies, has seen Labour’s standing in the polls plummet, threatening its “super majority” of 156 MPs and letting in the hard-right populist Reform UK party of Nigel Farage.

The Prime Minister’s authority with Labour MPs reached its lowest ebb on Tuesday after he had to heavily water down a welfare-reform bill to avert a rebellion by more than 120 members.

The huge increase in support gained at the general election had already been curtailed by Mr Starmer’s questionable stance, shortly after the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, when he suggested that Israel had the right to withhold water to Gaza. Four of the new MPs entering the Commons were all Muslim independents, largely elected on a pro-Palestinian vote and all in former Labour seats.

Tremors for that loss of popularity have been felt in the latest polling that extraordinarily suggests Reform would get the majority of seats, 271, if a general election was held today, with Labour second on 178, Lib Dems on 81 and the Conservatives fourth with just 46.

Fresh start

It all looked so different a year ago when The National watched as Mr Starmer, accompanied by his wife Victoria, walked into Downing Street and announced that he would restore level-headed government, fix the economy, spur house building and revive the National Health Service.

Minutes earlier his predecessor, Rishi Sunak, had departed, ending 14 years of Conservative rule that in the chaotic, mismanaged post-Brexit years had resulted in a decline in Britain’s global standing.

Labour had been handed a toxic legacy by the Tories, including a £20 billion ($27.31 billion) black hole in finances, unchecked migration and a hollowed-out military and NHS. “The inheritance was abysmal and that needs replaying,” said Labour’s policy thinker Jon Cruddas, who retired as an MP at the election.

John Slinger, who became an MP for the first time last year, suggested that a “poisoned chalice was quite deliberately bequeathed by the Tories”, impeding Labour’s ability to grow the economy without resorting to tax rises.

That, agreed another Labour backbencher, was “cunning, did us damage and we've paid a political price”.

Ultimately most people in Labour would acknowledge that “they haven't got everything right” but it had faced circumstances “more challenging than any government in living memory”, said Joe Dromey, general secretary of the Labour-leaning Fabian Society.

“It has been a very tumultuous situation especially since the re-election of Donald Trump, with the geopolitical order being turned on its head and unleashing of trade wars.”

Rioting

While absorbing the economic shock of what the Tories left behind, Mr Starmer was jolted into dealing with his first crisis. After the murders of three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class, the country exploded in a series of anti-migrant riots. That was three weeks after Labour came to power.

Most commentators agreed Mr Starmer handled the crisis well, resolving another Conservative inheritance of overcrowded prisons by rapidly clearing space for the 200 or so convicted rioters.

If it seemed things settled for a while then the political power battle between his chief of staff, former civil servant Sue Gray, and others in Downing Street culminated in the former’s departure in October.

There were other early speed bumps such as revelations about “freebies” given to ministers, which in Mr Starmer’s case was for accepting director’s box tickets to Arsenal football matches, suits and glasses.

Gaza mood change

Those early controversies subsided only to be replaced by the hastening global crisis and the Gaza situation in particular.

Labour looked to position itself as tougher on Israel than the Conservatives, which had shown lukewarm support, by introducing a modest arms embargo, agreeing to not oppose international arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and restoring UNWRA aid funding.

That placated some MPs for some months, as did the January ceasefire, but with Israel embarking on its revised security plan for Gaza and recommencing military action in March the mood in parliament “dramatically changed”, said Mr Slinger.

“With civilian suffering on a totally unacceptable scale the actions we've taken have become more condemnatory and the Israeli government doesn't like it, but the way they're acting now in Gaza, you just cannot have humanitarian suffering on that scale,” he added.

But that change has come too late for some party stalwarts. Mr Cruddas warned that Labour’s initial stance had “damaged the credibility of the moral character of the government”.

“There is a festering problem around Gaza, which I'm fearful people won't forget, and it's not just about our relationship with Muslim voters it's a wider question of our ethical approach to what's been happening across the Middle East,” he said.

Labour’s Gaza position had “created a rupture with Muslim voters”, the back bench MP source said, which was why independent MPs such as Shockat Adam won their seats.

The majority of MPs in the Commons now support UK recognition of a Palestinian state, Mr Adam told The National, “yet the government doesn't seem to listen”.

He also described the UK’s sanctioning last month of two Israeli cabinet ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, as “tokenistic gestures” in a government’s stance that was “extremely disheartening and disappointing”.

Trump sweeteners

Surprisingly to some, despite having no previous experience, Mr Starmer has added polish to his reputation through his international work.

Labour was savvy enough to sweeten Mr Trump before his election win and since then the Prime Minister has trodden a careful path to avoid both sycophancy and confrontation.

That allowed Britain to become the first country to sign a trade deal with America, although potential US tariffs remain a concern.

“He's proven to be smart and agile in not getting boxed in, in a very difficult international environment,” said Mr Cruddas. “He's played that quite well.”

Despite opposing politics, Mr Starmer had “surprised quite a few people” with his constructive Trump relationship that “paid off” with the trade deal, added Mr Dromey.

An example of that came when Mr Starmer delicately navigated the potential maelstrom fallout of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s White House confrontation with Mr Trump in February.

He was behind some form of reconciliation that has secured continued US backing for Ukraine and, with Mr Starmer’s urging, greater Nato-wide support for defence spending.

Trade deals have also been struck with India and the EU that will help the economy and defence is receiving significant uplift, albeit at the cost of the international aid budget.

U-turn

But domestic disquiet is growing among Labour MPs deeply concerned at welfare payment cuts and the axing of winter fuel payments to pensioners. These have resulted in government U-turns which can have an eroding effect over time on a prime minister’s authority.

That was also not helped by the “narrative of decline and defeatism” of the government blaming the Tories for the UK’s dire state, said Mr Cruddas. “Talking down the country is not helpful, he needs to be much more positive and assertive,” he advised.

But Mr Slinger argued that their policies will see the economy grow and that people’s anger being “exploited by Reform will dissipate”.

His backbench colleague suggested that even after a year in office “most governments are unpopular … it’s the nature of things.”

Mr Starmer has until August 2029, at the latest, to improve his fortunes if he wishes to win a second term.