Starmer still doesn’t get it

The problem is that this is exactly what he is still offering.

I listened to his speech this morning, hoping to hear humility, urgency and something genuinely new. Instead, there was no apology, no serious reckoning, and no real explanation of how Labour had gone from a landslide majority to being punished so brutally at the polls.

Labour’s electoral drubbing was not a bolt from the blue. It was foreseeable. It was avoidable. And it was, overwhelmingly, of the party leadership’s own making.

For months, the organisation I lead, Compassion in Politics, has warned that Labour cannot win by chasing Reform. Our polling with Survation showed Labour could attract 3.2 million more votes by standing by its core values rather than running from them.

But instead of courage, we got caution and a preoccupation with wooing the Reform vote. Instead of conviction, triangulation. Instead of a politics rooted in fairness, dignity, solidarity and care, we got reset after reset, too often amounting to grudging reversals of policies like the cut to winter fuel allowance and the attack on disability benefits that should never have been pursued in the first place.

Today was supposed to be another reset. But what was actually new?

The answer is very little.

He told us a closer relationship with Europe would define his leadership. But the EU reset was promised before the election and launched at the UK-EU summit in 2025. We have already had the warm words, the handshakes and the language of a closer relationship. This is just re-heated cabbage. If Starmer really wanted to show seriousness, he would be taking the UK into the customs union or, better still, the single market. Instead, he is still trapped inside the old red lines.

One of the most revealing moments came when he suggested the Greens and Reform posed equal threats to Britain. Really? They do not equate, and his attempt to bunch them together shows how badly he is misreading the room. Reform trades in fear, grievance and division. The Green agenda, whether or not one agrees with every policy, speaks to concerns millions of Labour voters share: climate, inequality, housing, public ownership and the future we leave our children.

That matters because it shows the deeper problem. Labour still seems more frightened of the left than of the damage caused by abandoning it.

A real reset would not be another speech. It would be a change of direction. It would mean bold, material policies that change people’s lives: a real minimum living wage, a wellbeing index instead of a blind obsession with GDP, a serious tax contribution from the very wealthiest, an end to Right to Buy, and a national mission to build social and genuinely affordable housing.

It would mean compassion not as a slogan, but as a governing principle.

That is what people are crying out for. Not managerial language. Not another relaunch. Not a Prime Minister telling us he understands the problem while refusing to make the choices that would solve it.

Starmer’s speech did not reassure me. It confirmed the problem.

He says incremental change will not cut it. He is right.

But he still has not shown he understands that he is the one offering it.

Starmer now faces two choices: limp on towards likely electoral defeat and the terrifying prospect of a Reform government, or fall on his sword and allow an orderly transition to a leader who can begin to repair the damage.

The leader best able to reverse Labour’s losses is Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Manchester.

If Starmer wants to avoid the chaos of a free-for-all leadership election, he should allow for an orderly transition and a return to parliament for Burnham with his proven track record of delivering change and his capacity to rebuild trust with the voters Labour has lost.

The question now is whether Starmer is prepared to put country before self, or whether he will cling on until the party, and the country, pay the price.

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Jennifer Nadel is a political commentator and co-founder of Compassion in Politics.

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