Keir Starmer's strategy of cautious competence has served Labour well so far, but the party now faces its toughest test as it struggles to define its own agenda. While Labour maintains a commanding poll lead and Starmer is preferred to Rishi Sunak as prime minister, critics warn that the party is drifting back to old habits of internal division and unclear messaging.
The challenge is most evident in the saga of the £28 billion annual green investment pledge. Originally a flagship commitment, it has been watered down to an aspiration subject to fiscal tests. The policy has become a battleground between shadow Treasury officials, who fear it invites charges of reckless borrowing, and campaign planners, who worry it will be used as a scare tactic by the Tories.
Ed Miliband, the shadow energy secretary and former leader, is the policy's most vocal advocate. But Labour veterans of the 2015 election defeat view him as a liability, accusing him of squandering poll leads. Starmer walks a tightrope, defending the principle of public investment for growth while avoiding being tied to the £28 billion figure.
Labour's three-phase plan—rescuing the party from Corbynism, proving the Tories unfit, and presenting a credible alternative—is now in its final stage. But making the political weather is harder for oppositions than governments, and Labour's anodyne approach risks failing to capture public attention amid competing crises like the Middle East war and immigration rows.
Starmer's success so far owes much to voters recoiling from a rotten government, but the party must now fill the vacancy with a compelling offer. The danger is that internal squabbles and a lack of boldness will undermine the progress made since 2020.
