‘Keir Starmer must ship or the populists will pounce’

Time and again I hear the same complaints. “Why is the government doing so badly?”

“What is the story Keir Starmer is trying to tell?” “Why are they making so many errors?” The people asking these questions are not opponents of the Government. They are despairing Labour supporters.

This week Keir Starmer tried to reassure the doubters. Downing Street insisted his big speech on Thursday was not a relaunch or a reboot or a reset but, whatever you wish to call it, it was clearly an acknowledgement that the ship needed to be steadied.

There are now six clear goals by which the Government will be judged: improving living standards, cutting NHS waiting lists, building more homes, making streets safer, boosting green energy and supporting young children. As his opponents were quick to notice, immigration was omitted from this list of milestones. Downing Street may have decided that Labour is never going to outflank Reform when it comes to migration and including it among the targets would be to allow Nigel Farage to dictate the political conversation.

Starmer will also have noted how the Conservatives came undone on migration by failing to meet their pledges to stop the Channel crossings or cut the number legally entering the country to the tens of thousands. Setting a target would only have given the populists another potential failure on which to feed.

The thinking in No 10 is that the best way to address concerns about immigration is to tackle the problems which stoke the sense of grievance. If you improve communities, build more homes and fix the NHS then you reduce the opportunities to sow division and resentment.

But Starmer knows better than anyone that if he fails to deliver on his promises then the populists stand ready to pounce. It is a reflection of how the political map is changing that Starmer chose to address the threat posed by Farage rather than take the fight to Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives.

Labour MPs in traditional heartland seats have been telling No 10 that Reform now poses more of a danger than the Tories – a concern which was born out by a poll this week which had the Conservatives on 26 per cent, Reform on 24 per cent and Labour on 23 per cent. Starmer is betting everything on being able to show voters at the next election that their lives have got better.

Not everyone is convinced that hitting a series of targets will be enough to keep the populists at bay. You only have to look at the United States where the Democrats presided over a booming economy and still got a kicking.

Politics is not just a transactional process where votes are exchanged for delivery. It is also about telling a national story which people want to follow. Successful left-of-centre parties combine the retail side of government with a crusade to deliver social justice – this is what gives them identity and purpose. Starmer has his missions but he has yet to show he is a missionary.