More in sadness than in anger, a union official spoke to me: ‘If Liz Truss calls a quick election, there’s nothing we can do.
There is no way our members would allow us to spend £10 million of their money to fund Labor’s election campaign if we have no idea whether Keir Starmer will stand up for the interests of the union members.’
He went on to say scathingly about the Labor leader: “Unless we get a clear picture of Starmer about what he believes in and what he would do in government, we won’t be writing one-off checks anymore.”
The catalyst for what we are seeing in the collapse of labor relations at the heart of the labor movement has been the rapidly escalating crisis over Sam Tarry, until last week’s Labor’s Shadow Minister of Transport.
He has zero charisma. He has no political insight. He’s not left enough for left. He’s not right enough for right. And the centrists regard him as little more than their useful idiot
The East London MP was stripped of his assignment after appearing on a picket line in support of striking railway workers.
A few hours after telling Channel 4 News: ‘If I lose my job because I stand shoulder to shoulder with railway workers, then so be it’, he duly lost his post in the shadow cabinet as Sir Keir Starmer moved at unusual speed .
“As a government waiting, any breach of collective responsibility is taken extremely seriously and for these reasons Sam Tarry has been removed from the front seat,” a Starmer spokesperson said.
At that point, the party’s left fell into a predictable collapse.
Corbyni MPs took to social media to condemn their comrade’s resignation and show solidarity. Union leaders joined the chorus of condemnation. And—most tellingly—there was an ominous silence from Sir Keir’s deputy Angela Rayner, a close personal friend of Tarry’s.
Despite the resistance, on a narrow political level, it seemed like a smart move by the Labor leader. As one veteran of a party who is generally not a Starmer admirer told me, “People can argue over the details of how Keir handled this. But the reality is that the public doesn’t pay much attention to what the opposition leader is doing over the summer. But what they will notice is a man who shows that he is different from Corbyn and is willing to stand up to the unions and the left.’
Then he added wryly, “I don’t think Keir will be the next Tony Blair. But at least he shows he’s not the next Ed Miliband.’
At a time when Tory MPs were worried about whether or not Boris Johnson would be ousted, one lamented to me that the Conservatives had no one else to beat “the politically hypocritical, vacillating, self-righteous shape-shifter of Labour.” It now seems that a similar conundrum faces Labour
But not being Ed Miliband isn’t exactly setting a high political bar. And as has so often happened in his leadership, in trying to show strength, Sir Keir once again exposes chronic weakness.
Had he addressed the unions on behalf of the hard-pressed taxpayers and commuters who were left without trains due to the many strikes, Sir Keir could have presented a clear and consistent strategy.
But he is not taking on the unions. He just does the same thing as sticking his tongue out at them and then walking away.
When asked about Tarry’s resignation, Sir Keir’s spokesman said: “This is not about appearing on a picket line.” That was despite Sir Keir having said the previous day: ‘The opposition party must be the Labor party in power. And a government doesn’t follow picket lines.’
When the first round of railway strikes took place, Sir Keir issued a direct order that no members of his frontbench team be seen directly supporting them. Despite the instruction, a dozen shadow ministers and private parliamentary secretaries appeared on the picket lines to show their solidarity. Sir Keir did nothing.
In reality, his firing of Tarry was not the product of mature political calculation, but of irritability. Tarry was not targeted for his offense—not unlike that of several Shadow Cabinet colleagues—but, I believe, for his association with Angela Rayner.
Initially Sir Keir had a good working relationship with his deputy. But that quickly soured.
As a Rayner ally explained to me, “At first, Keir made it a point to want an equal relationship with her. He spoke about ‘our policy’ and ‘our strategy’. But his team told him that wouldn’t work. He had to assert himself. And that’s where the split started.
“Now they look at Angela and they see someone who is authentic, funny and popular with the grassroots. And they know that’s all Keir isn’t.’
By trying to put Tarry and – by extension – Rayner in their place, Sir Keir has set a wasp’s nest in motion. And again, underlined a fundamental truth. He doesn’t really have a strategy. He has no concrete political convictions that can serve as a basis for a possible strategy. As a result, he gropes around in the political darkness.
A few months ago I was talking to an aide to Starmer, who recalled the time during his party leadership campaign when Sir Keir remarked, ‘You know, I don’t understand politics. I do not understand. And I don’t like it that much.’
How did he get himself in this position? The Tory party is literally leaderless. The economy is teetering on the brink of recession. Airports and ports are in chaos. And yet the Labor leader has somehow managed to start a civil war against himself.
The unions will not budge. I’ve been told that the election funding boycott is just their first chance. A series of motions are being prepared for the Labor Party conference that will not only denounce Sir Keir but bind him to support future union action.
Next year, moderate unions will debate whether or not to break with the party completely. Or, at the very least, end the bankrolling of Labor in its current form and begin the process of giving funds exclusively to those MPs who are supposedly aligned with ‘union values’.
But it’s not just the unions that are losing patience. Centrist Labor MPs are pulling their hair out over Sir Keir’s mistreatment of the summer of discontent.
As someone told me, ‘It’s insane. You could see this coming from miles away. Why didn’t he set the policy? There are now people in the Shadow Cabinet who are seriously asking if he is deliberately trying to sabotage the party so that it has to be disbanded and we have to start over.”
Another Labor MP told me something similar: ‘There will be a leadership challenge for Starmer soon. It will come from the right, not the left. The old Blairites simply use him to carry out the reforms they want. When that’s done, they’ll dump him.’
If that’s true, they need to get moving. Because what does Sir Keir Starmer literally bring to the party?
He has made no real connection to the electorate. He is another white, male, middle class, Liberal Labor leader in North London, straight from the central casting. His values - articulated during his leadership election through his ‘Ten Pledges’ – have, as he admits, been discarded. He has no new policies and he cannot formulate a coherent position on where he stands on old ones, such as the nationalization of rail and other utilities.
He has zero charisma. He has no political insight. He’s not left enough for left. He’s not right enough for right. And the centrists regard him as little more than their useful idiot.
At a time when Tory MPs were worried about whether or not Boris Johnson would be ousted, one lamented to me that the Conservatives had no one else to beat “the politically hypocritical, vacillating, self-righteous shape-shifter of Labour.”
It now appears that Labor is facing a similar conundrum. Is there really none other than Sir Keir Starmer? Is he the best the party has to offer?
Perhaps there is no one in Labor’s ranks who would give it a better chance – even marginally – to end the party’s decade in the political wilderness.
In that case, once she sees Rishi Sunak and becomes prime minister, Liz Truss should call a general election.