Labour MPs think getting rid of Starmer will fix Britain - they couldn't be more wrong
It’s going to be a dramatic few months for British politics.
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In the wake of Andy Burnham’s thumping victory in Makerfield, it will only be a matter of time before a leadership contest is triggered.
Labour MPs seem completely convinced that only a change at the top will now solve Britain’s problems.
Like the Tories, they have fallen for the naive and comforting belief that a new leader will be able to transform the country and the party’s fortunes overnight.
Burnham has a strong personal following in Manchester and has achieved some success in nationalising the local bus network. And yet, somewhere along the way, scores of Labour MPs became convinced that Burnham, who to my mind appears to be a very similar proposition to Keir Starmer, is the man who will rescue Britain from its path of decline.
To me, the problem with Britain isn’t Keir Starmer, but the fact that our politics is now shaped by this automatic assumption that when the going gets tough, the answer is to boot out the person at the top and elect a new leader. But all that ends up happening is they get battered by a bad set of election results, meaning the process starts again, and it’s time for another change at the top, and so the endless cycle continues.
This short-termism and preoccupation of impetuous politicians with court intrigue means politics is constantly chopping and changing, with endless cabinet reshuffles and policy ‘resets’ - all the while nothing meaningful ever changes. Between 1979 and 2010, Britain had four Prime Ministers. Since 2010, in half that time, we’ve had six.
The most politically consequential political leaders of the last 50 years - whether or not you agree with them - were Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher, both of whom spent more than a decade in office. It’s hard to imagine that level of political continuity now, particularly for young people like me who can barely remember a time when Prime Ministers would last more than three years in office.
I’m no great fan of Starmer, but I do think he needs to be given at the very least a four-year term to have a proper crack at governing the country - not least because I don’t think either Burnham or Wes Streeting would do a better job given that so many problems in Britain, like the cost of living crisis, stem from events beyond our own shores out of the realm of domestic politics. The endless leadership speculation seems even more foolish at a time of so much international upheaval. Starmer, for all his faults, remains well respected internationally. Switching leaders yet again will make Britain look indecisive and unstable on the world stage.
The problems that this country faces have just as much to do with the short-termism and endless flux within our politics as the calibre of the personnel at the top. If I could make one appeal to politicians from all parties, it would be to let go of their addiction to tearing down leaders and instead focus on governing the country. Then, at long last, things may actually start to change.
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Issy Clarke is a journalist at LBC.
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