Labour's Faustian Pact Unravels: Starmerism's Collapse and Britain's Fallout
In a dramatic turn of events, Keir Starmer's former chief-of-staff, Morgan McSweeney, has departed Downing Street, leaving Britain's government in a state of disarray. This development, captured in a photograph from 6 October 2025, symbolises the disintegration of a political project that was once hailed as a beacon of competence. The left had long warned that Starmerism would end in failure, and now the entire nation is grappling with the consequences of a Faustian pact that privileged Labour's reactionary forces to sustain the Prime Minister's power.
The Illusion of Life in a Headless Government
Like a chicken that loses its head but continues to flap its wings briefly, Britain's government is now operating on residual nerve impulses after McSweeney's downfall. Insiders describe Keir Starmer as a leader devoid of core politics, with aides privately boasting that he merely serves as their frontman. McSweeney was the de-facto prime minister, the head of the operation, and his absence has triggered chaotic flapping in every direction. The resignation of Starmer's director of communications, Tim Allan, coupled with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar's call for Starmer's resignation, underscores the open question of his political survival. Despite this uncertainty, the Starmerite project is effectively over.
The Broken Promise of Competence and Centre Ground Politics
Conventional political wisdom painted Starmer as competence incarnate, a figure committed to public service who would spare Britain from Tory-era psychodramas. His team was marketed as adults in the room, discovering an electoral elixir by ruling out significant tax rises on the wealthy, attacking the welfare state, and bashing migrants to appeal to the fabled centre ground. Philip Collins, Starmer's former speechwriter, initially cooed about his comfort in office, predicting a thriving premiership. Instead, Starmer's government has become the Fyre festival of British politics—lavishly hyped, buoyed by elite enthusiasm, and collapsing into fiasco almost immediately upon taking office.
The Left's Warnings and the Right's Deceitful Strategy
Critics on the left predicted this implosion, not merely as opposition rhetoric but based on clear reasons. When Jeremy Corbyn won the Labour leadership in 2015, the party's right faced a critical choice. Instead of building on Corbyn's 2017 surge, which delivered Labour's biggest vote share increase since 1945, they opted for deceit. McSweeney, who ran Liz Kendall's failed 2015 leadership campaign, concluded that retaking the party required manipulation. Starmer, a politician seeking power for its own sake, served as the perfect candidate, opportunistically sounding off against Brexit to appease the membership while abandoning leftwing pledges from his leadership campaign.
Paul Holden's book, The Fraud, meticulously documents how Starmerism was defined by cynicism and a lack of coherent policy vision. McSweeney's dominance symbolised the Faustian bargain with Labour's most reactionary forces, a deal sealed with Peter Mandelson's influence. Reports suggest McSweeney consulted Mandelson on every breath, and just days before his downfall, Mandelson was in Number 10 designing Starmer's reshuffle. This influence was no accident; it filled a political vacuum with Blairite retreads whose ideas belong to a bygone era.
Symptoms of a Deeper Problem: Wealth, Power, and Elite Approval
Starmer's record-breaking freebies and Mandelson's friendship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein are symptoms of a faction mesmerised by wealth, proximity to power, and elite approval. This obsession doomed Starmerism, exactly as the left foretold. The instability in British politics, with a third of postwar prime ministers serving in the past decade, stems from a squeezed living standards and a hollowed-out public realm, driving mass disillusionment. Since the 2008 economic collapse, the absence of a credible alternative has fuelled instability and emboldened the far right, which thrives on framing issues as a zero-sum struggle between citizens and migrants.
The Electoral Warning and the Path Forward
At the last election, Labour won barely a third of the vote amid the lowest turnout in modern history, a warning sign ignored by commentators fixated on Starmer's prime ministerial vibes. Had the left's critique been heeded, this collapse would not be surprising. Now, with McSweeney's departure, Labour faces disaster, and Britain risks rightwing authoritarianism through potential pacts between Reform UK and the Tories. A sensible Labour response would address Britain's broken economic model with progressive taxation, investment in services, an end to privatisation, and a mass public housebuilding programme.
Andy Burnham understands this, but the party hierarchy blocks his advancement. Angela Rayner might deliver Starmerism with a Stockport accent, but she would likely compromise with the right. Installing Wes Streeting, Mandelson's favourite, would only double down on failure. As the Greens gain traction in urban heartlands, a hung parliament with a large Green contingent could force electoral reform and challenge the failed economic model. In the wreckage left by McSweeney, this offers a glimmer of hope for a political reset.
