FPW Special - How Sir Kier Starmer Can Salvage a Legacy

The prospect of Sir Kier maintaining a fond legacy is, for some, unthinkable. He is the most unpopular prime minister in living memory – sitting pretty at a negative 46.4% approval rating at the time of writing – and the mention of his name in the recent Makerfield by-election was, for Labour, a surefire way to lose a vote. Indeed, the thumping victory for would-be leader Andy Burnham can largely be seen as a wholesale rejection of Sir Kier, his politics, his government and especially his Labour party.  

 

Yet a legacy can certainly still be established from the ashes. Following the 2019 election, Labour’s worst result since 1935, many within the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) feared a decade in the political wilderness. Yet Starmer, on taking the leadership in April 2020, was able to remodel the party and make it electable again. Winning a majority of 174 seats, 5 years after the disastrous result of 2019, was an incredible achievement. Yet Starmer risks throwing that away, for himself and for the Labour movement, by pledging to go down with a ship that does not need to sink.  

 

Following the 2024 election result, Starmer declared his programme for a decade of national renewal. If he stands by this pledge, he should step aside. This decade of national renewal is still possible, and the nation sorely needs it, but the man who set it in motion cannot see it through. Sir Kier must recognise this and step aside without a Tory-flavoured psycho-drama that would likely taint his successor.  

 

The Labour Party has no history of assassinating its leaders. This is a truth that Starmer and his dwindling ranks of supporters have parroted frequently. Yet, it can equally be applied to the leader-in-waiting, Andy Burnham. A battle of ideas is, for some, what is required to stun Labour out of its stupor. Yet this debate would likely be shallow, pointless and a titanic waste of time, as Burnham is by far the more popular candidate amongst the Labour membership. Both Wes Streeting and Sir Kier enjoy as much support from Labour’s membership as Gianni Infantino enjoys amongst morally upright football fans. Therefore, Sir Kier will not be the Labour leader at the next election; he has spent all his political capital and is increasingly isolated at the top. He must not assassinate the next Labour leader.  

 

Thus, Starmer can choose his legacy. He got Labour into office after 2019 far quicker than anyone ever expected. Furthermore, his legacy in government is not as bad as the media makes it out to be. 100,000 children lifted out of poverty, an increased minimum wage, keeping the UK out of Donald Trump’s war in Iran and the slow repair of the UK’s relations with the EU can all be added to Starmer’s legacy, atop hiscrowning achievement, the 2024 election result.  

 

This, however, will all be forgotten if Sir Kier viciously battles to stay at his post until the curtains close on his Labour government. If Starmer wins the leadership contest – don’t hold your breath – he would, barring a miracle, lose the next election for the PLP and potentially set the stage for the pantomime of a Nigel Farage government. If Starmer loses the contest, his last act on the national political stage would be an attempt to discredit and undermine the future leader and direction of the Labour Party.   

 

In looking for his legacy, Starmer must now recognise that the writing is on the wall. Sir Kier – like Neil Kinnock – could be seen as a leader who stabilised the PLP and set it on a more electorally successful course. Equally, if he fights viciously to the grisly end, all that he has done for the PLP, and his minimal but largely unrecognised successes in office, will be overwritten by how he delayed and damaged a change in direction that Labour and the nation greatly needed.