As Westminster rages and Labour sinks into civil war, the pressing question remains: what about the people? Voters are desperate for a turnaround in living standards, and the runners and riders for the Labour leadership must address this.
The Cocoon of Westminster
Catherine West, a Labour backbencher who recently threatened Keir Starmer for the leadership, knows the disconnect well. She has been an MP for 11 years, yet her warning about the cocoon of Westminster resonates. The political class is shielded from the harsh realities outside, focusing on internal chess games rather than the existential crises facing the country.
Ignoring the Voters
Last week's elections underlined one thing: Starmer is on course to lose badly to Nigel Farage and his politics of ethnic division. All Downing Street's flag-waving and anti-immigrant rhetoric has failed. The outcome that most horrifies Labour MPs—not just losing power, but handing it to Reform—looms ever larger. Yet there was no plan to change course, just the same old names playing long and complicated chess games, waiting for scandals to fade or parliamentary recess to start.
Westminster is a cocoon. This phrase sums up the period: politicians protected from the harsh world outside. Only a cocoon could explain Labour MPs lining up behind Wes Streeting or Andy Burnham with no explanation of how either would better run a country heading into its third economic crisis in six years. After Covid and the inflationary shock of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the US and Israeli war on Iran is again pushing up prices on everything from diesel to fruit and vegetables. By this autumn, analysts forecast that the average food bill will be 50% higher than when the last cost of living crisis began. How any would-be prime minister plans to deal with that ought to be the number one consideration.
The Collapse of the Two-Party System
Only a cocoon could explain the surprise felt by Labour MPs at the visceral dislike of voters while doorknocking—reporters have been hearing it for months. Only a cocoon could have shielded SW1 from the collapse of the two-party system, one of the central political facts of our time. After decaying for decades, the political mainstream is now about to give out. Last week, only one out of three voters voted for either of the two main parties. Two out of three Britons made what would once have been called a protest vote. And there is a lot to protest about: a baby born today can expect to live less of its life in good health than a decade ago. Living standards have barely budged since the banking crash. Young people find it almost impossible to get on the housing ladder and start their lives.
The failure of either Labour or the Tories to tackle these issues is why Reform and the Greens are doing so well. Farage's electoral strength is the flipside of the political mainstream's weakness. If he wins in 2029, it will be because the mainstream are losers. Take it from someone who has been warning about Farage from the moment he stepped back into Westminster: he is beatable. Indeed, he has just been beaten. Last week, Reform campaigned hard in one of the most Brexit parts of the UK, Wales—and it lost to Plaid Cymru, which is not a party sponsored by crypto-billionaires. In England, Reform scored almost the same vote share as Labour did in the 1983 general election under Michael Foot. For younger readers who have never heard of Michael Foot, there is a reason: he lost.
The Internal War
If today's Labour MPs are serious about beating Farage, they need to come up with answers to those existential questions facing their voters. As it is, the party this week has tipped into an internal war, christened by one wit on the internet as the Burn-sheviks versus the Wes-sheviks (one awaits the coming of the Ed-sheviks). Having broken out, that war is unlikely to stop. Not when the home secretary, the foreign secretary, and the energy secretary are all calling on their boss to bring in the removal vans. Not when almost one in four Labour MPs have demanded their prime minister quit. Once said, these things cannot be unsaid, and simply pretending they have not been voiced is untenable.
What Must Be Done
For the rest of us, our hope must be that rather than starting up the tunes for Westminster's next round of musical chairs, the contenders turn and face the country and tell us what they would do better. As Labour Growth Group pointed out this week, 72% of the electorate say the cost of living crisis is structural, not a temporary squeeze. This is a country well ahead of its political class, says its report. Yet the usual solution of more market and more delivery will not cut it—because it has not cut it for the past two years.
Anyone who wants to replace Starmer has to start by accepting that he has done good things—just not enough and not at scale. The king's speech this week is a good example. There is a social housing bill, which stops the sale of newly built council houses. After 35 years, this makes council housebuilding viable again. But there is not the money to build more council homes. There is the nationalisation of British Steel in Scunthorpe, part of the prime minister's big reset. Good—but as trade unions argue, why did he let Port Talbot collapse?
The UK is in the grip of deep and justified pessimism: that tomorrow will be worse than today, that our children will not enjoy the same standards of living that we have done. That is what any Labour leadership contest must address. Only politicians in a cocoon could think otherwise.
