In response to Rafael Behr's article "Keir Starmer couldn't beat the curse of Brexit – a politics poisoned by nationalism," readers have challenged his analysis, arguing that the roots of Britain's discontent lie deeper than competing patriotic narratives. Behr suggested that Brexit created a politics poisoned by nationalism and that Labour's real challenge is to reclaim patriotism. However, David Eaton from Sunderland contends that the social and economic conditions producing Brexit were not created by nationalism. Regional inequality, economic insecurity, and declining trust in political institutions long predated the referendum. Nationalist rhetoric provided a language for these grievances but did not generate them.
Structural Crisis vs. Narrative Failure
Eaton further criticizes Behr's assessment of Keir Starmer, noting that Behr attributes Starmer's failure to not seeing politics as a competition between modes of national identity, while suggesting Andy Burnham may succeed due to a more natural storytelling manner. Eaton argues this transforms a structural crisis into a question of narrative and political communication. He points out that Britain has had six prime ministers in a decade, and it is difficult to believe the explanation lies primarily in failures of rhetoric. Political instability may reflect deeper contradictions that no leader can resolve through a more compelling account of patriotism.
Eaton finds it revealing that after diagnosing a profound crisis, Behr's remedy remains within the same framework: a better story about the nation. The possibility that Britain's discontent stems from economic and institutional structures rather than competing patriotic narratives barely enters the discussion. In the end, Eaton states, Behr asks us to believe that Britain's troubles stem from the wrong idea of the nation and can be solved by a better one, which is less an explanation than an illustration of the crisis.
Historical Parallels and Political Knowledge
Denis MacShane, former Europe minister, writes that Rafael Behr correctly notes Starmer provoked fury by sounding like Enoch Powell when warning about Britain becoming an "island of strangers." Starmer also told the Labour Movement for Europe in 2022 that his policy was "to make Brexit work," the same words used by Theresa May to define her Brexit policy. MacShane argues one can reasonably ask why there was no one in Downing Street with knowledge of recent political history to remove such unhappy Tory language from his public utterances. He contrasts Starmer, a lifelong lawyer, with Andy Burnham, who will be the first prime minister to have read English since Stanley Baldwin. MacShane suggests that studying the words and passions of history through literature may better prepare one to govern the complex, four-nation UK. He recalls Burnham regularly attending bilateral meetings with EU parliamentarians alongside his multilingual wife, demonstrating a genuine curiosity about Europe that has disappeared from British politics since the Brexit vote.
Electoral System Under Fire
Stephen Walkley from Swinford, Leicestershire, adds that Behr suggests Brexit caused Starmer's resignation, but the electoral system may also deserve credit. He notes that Labour received 33.7% of the votes at the 2024 general election, electing 411 MPs – 63.2% of the total. Governing as if having full backing of the electorate helped create the current mess. That Starmer was unpopular on the doorstep should not be a surprise given that two-thirds of voters chose another party. Walkley predicts that Andy Burnham may find himself as unpopular as Starmer in a few months. He argues that a proportional system would allow whichever grouping emerged to at least have a majority of the electorate's support behind them.
