Out of the shadows: audacious Starmer attacks Boris from the right

The party of patriotism and Brexit. This was Labour’s “out of the shadows” moment, said Keir Starmer in his first conference speech since becoming the party’s leader. “The Tories have had as many election winners in five years as we’ve had in 75. It’s a betrayal of what we believe in to let this go on. It’s time to get serious about winning. That means we have to change, and that’s what we’re doing. This is a party under new leadership.”

Delivered before a literal red wall, it was speech reminiscent of David Cameron’s no-notes pitch at the launch of his 2005 Conservative leadership campaign. Starmer mentioned the word “change” ten times, and even borrowed one of Cameron’s most famous lines, insisting: “We’re not going to be a party that keeps banging on about Europe.”

Yet the most symbolic moment wasn’t in Starmer’s speech, but the introduction to it. Ruth Smeeth, who was a forceful critic of Corbyn on the backbenches before losing her northern seat at the last election, was given the prime slot. “We all know that losing is grim. No one wants to experience an election night like [2019] ever again,” she said. “We failed the country because we didn’t listen to the people. Their concerns never felt like ours, breeding a distrust that turned to straight dislike. We must never again allow that to be the case.”

As a MP who is Jewish, Smeeth was a victim of anti-semitism from the left of the Labour party. Her presence was a clear rebuttal of Corbynism and its adherents, some of whom continue to accuse Smeeth of duplicity. The message from Starmer’s team was that the Labour party, “under new leadership”, would no longer tolerate their politics. The man who won the leadership race with an overwhelming majority would now use his mandate to shift his party back to the centre.

The usual Corbynite suspects were predictably unimpressed on Twitter accusing Starmer of embracing far-right politics by calling himself patriotic. But the audiences which matter to the new leadership – the mainstream media and Conservative-leaning voters –were impressed. “Easily the best Labour conference speech I can remember in ten years. Out of the shadows is a brilliant riff on so many levels,” said The Sun’s Harry Cole. “Keir Starmer is a brilliant orator, completely different from the depressing, miserable tone of Corbyn’s speeches,” added Dominique Samuels, a young conservative commentator.

Having dealt with his own party, Starmer promptly turned his attention to the government. The Prime Minister is “just not serious,” he said. “He’s just not up to the job. Whenever he encounters a problem, Johnson responds either by wishing it away or by lashing out.” This critique will strike a chord with people on both sides of the coronavirus debate. Those concerned about civil liberties – including senior Conservative backbenchers – believe Johnson has lost faith in his own judgment and handed unjustifiable power to government scientists, while those concerned about case numbers believe he has failed to act with sufficient speed and authority.

Starmer drew increasingly personal comparisons between himself and the Prime Minister. “While Boris Johnson was writing flippant columns about bendy bananas [as The Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent], I was defending victims and prosecuting terrorists. While he was being sacked by [The Times] for making up quotes, I was fighting for justice and the rule of law.” By framing Johnson as an unserious columnist and himself as an anti-IRA street fighter, the new Labour leader was attempting to distance himself from the attributes which brought down his predecessor: the belief that Jeremy Corbyn wasn’t prime ministerial, and the sense that he was anti-British.

Then came the moment to change the narrative of Labour’s position on Brexit. Starmer turned the Prime Minister’s famous election slogan, ‘Get Brexit Done’, against him. “Our country needs a deal. And if the Prime Minister fails to get one, he will be failing Britain,” he said. “If that happens, he’ll have nobody to blame but himself. And he will have to own that failure. It will be on him. We want to get this deal done.”

Under any psephological analysis, the Conservatives’ 2019 victory relied almost entirely on those three features – patriotism, prime ministerial comportment, and Brexit. In one speech, the new Labour leader attempted to neutralise all three by confronting them head-on. It is a strategy adopted by both Tony Blair and David Cameron, who sent a signal to voters by occupying their opponents’ natural ideological ground on issues like climate change and defence. Such policies were designed to simultaneously detoxify their party brand and ignite in-fighting on the opposite benches.

Both leaders took their party from opposition to government in a single parliamentary term, and thus far it seems that Starmer could be on a similar track. An Ipsos MORI poll released today shows the new Labour leader leading Johnson on several leadership attitudes, including “capable leader”, “sound judgment’” and “good reputation for Britain on the world stage”. Labour is now neck and neck with the Conservatives, and the government’s upcoming struggles with coronavirus and Brexit will likely ignite further Conservative in-fighting and parliamentary rebellions.

There’s a long way to go before the next general election, but Starmer’s early success in shifting the polls has irked Conservatives, who increasingly seem to view their leader as a liability. The consequences of this for Johnson’s premiership could play out long before 2024.