Only one thing mattered about Keir Starmer's recent speech at Labour HQ, and that was to give the 81st Labour MP tempted to sign Catherine West's nomination paper a reason to hold back. Having such a well-defined purpose meant that it was a good speech by Starmer's standards, because the content, delivery and staging were all bent towards a single goal. That goal was to keep the number of MPs prepared to back a challenger below the 81 that would trigger a leadership election.
Calibrated Content
The content was calibrated with some skill to appeal to those MPs who are torn between the terror of the status quo and the roughly equal terror of the chaos that could be unleashed by change. The new announcement in the speech was the nationalisation of British Steel, a plot twist provided by the collapse of attempts to sell the company. Some Labour MPs might think that if a commercial sale is impossible, then the state should not be picking up the tab for a loss-making proposition, but the Labour MPs who could decide the prime minister's fate this week are more likely to think that 'public ownership in the public interest' is the kind of slogan they can sell to a sceptical electorate.
European Stance and Familiar Fare
The stuff about Europe was well trailed in advance and nothing new – the only hint for the pro-EU crowd was Starmer's refusal to rule out rejoining the single market as an option in Labour's next manifesto. Labour's current position on Europe, he said, is 'a platform on which we can build'. Apart from that, most of the speech was familiar fare, an attempt to blend an acceptance that the voters want change with a claim that the government is already beginning to deliver it. None of that will move the political market. Nor, I suspect, will the warning about the voters turning to Nigel Farage, who would take the country 'down a very dark path'. That is not a good way to talk to voters who are tempted by what Reform has to offer, implying that they are bad people for considering it, just as it was tactless to suggest that those who voted to leave the EU had been hoodwinked by a charlatan.
Audience: MPs, Not Voters
But Starmer wasn't talking to the voters; he was talking to his MPs, and specifically to the swing vote among his MPs who will decide his fate. They are very worried about handing over power to Farage at the next election. The trouble is that they fear that Starmer might be the person to hand that power over, and that another leader might have more chance of seeing Farage off. One of West's reasons for going over the top against Starmer was precisely that she thinks any delay in changing the leader will make it harder to beat Reform.
Missing: A Definite No to Burnham
Something that was missing from the speech, and from the answers to questions after it, was a definite No to Andy Burnham being allowed to return to the Commons. It is 'a decision for the NEC', said Starmer, when everyone knows that he currently has a majority on Labour's National Executive Committee, so he decides. My view is that he will block Burnham come what may, but his form of words allowed MPs who support Burnham to fool themselves that there is a chance that he will come back if they stay their hand against Starmer now.
Starmer has done what he can to give them and their colleagues reasons to grant him a stay of execution. West, for her part, has given mixed signals – she has climbed down on her own challenge, but said she will seek the numbers to declare a new leadership election 'by September'. But there will be another attempt to dislodge him soon, and it will still come down to that unknown 81st MP to decide the prime minister's fate.
