Keir Starmer: the vindictive captain of a gloomy ship

Sometimes, you do just have to laugh. Not so long ago, it was briefed out that No10 had heard the parliamentary party’s pleas loud and clear and would do a better job of engaging with MPs. Backbenchers would no longer feel ignored by Keir Starmer, and there would be more discussions between Downing Street and parliamentarians. Gone were the days of the boys club acting all macho and doing whatever they wanted; a new dawn was about to break.

Or was it? Earlier this week, days before the start of Parliament’s summer recess, the Labour leader took Westminster by surprise by removing the whip from four Labour backbenchers, and stripping three others of their trade envoy roles. There had been no warning shot, and the move felt like it’d come out of nowhere.

The reasoning was, allegedly, that all those MPs were “persistent rebels”, who didn’t oppose the government on a single issue but kept going against No10’s wishes. Chris Hinchliff spearheaded the rebellion against the planning bill, while Rachael Maskell and Neil Duncan-Jordan helped organise the internal movement against the winter fuel allowance cuts, and the welfare bill.

Brian Leishman hasn’t been as high profile a campaigner, but he is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group, which sits squarely on the left of the party. All four MPs were elected in 2024. The former trade envoys – Rosena Allin-Khan, Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Mohammad Yasin – voted against the government, which No10 said was incompatible with their roles. Already, wags have pointed out that some Liberal Democrats MPs have also been made trade envoys, and surely aren’t expected to follow the Labour whip.

In short: Starmer has now made it clear that it’s his way or the highway. Well, he first tried to make it clear a year ago, weeks after winning the election, when he removed the whip of seven left-wing Labour MPs who had voted against the two-child benefit cap. Some of them have been welcomed back into the party since then; others have not.

Suggested Reading

The Labour MPs giving up on Starmer

James Ball

It was possible to see last year’s move as an attempt to lay down some ground rules, and send a message to the backbenches. What does it say about this iteration of No10 that they just had to do exactly the same thing only 12 months later? Predictably, it has gone down like a cup of cold sick among the parliamentary party, with many MPs feeling blindsided and demoralised.

They will now head back to their constituencies over the summer feeling gloomy and unable to trust their leader, which surely isn’t what No10 was actually going for. What did they want, though? That’s the million dollar question. One answer is that they really do love hippie bashing, and hadn’t had the opportunity to bash any hippies in a little while. It would be a frustrating explanation, but a likely one. Many of Starmer’s advisers sincerely loathe the left, and will seek any excuse to marginalise them further.

Another is that the prime minister is simply unable to govern, and has surrounded himself with people incapable of reminding him that, with a large majority, ignoring people is a luxury you can afford. For a decade, Parliament was home to a succession of governments with either small or non-existent majorities.

In 2019, Boris Johnson got the House of Commons to what should have felt like a more stable place, but he was, ultimately, Boris Johnson. Chaos continued. Though Sunak could have tried to act like someone able, in theory, to pass more or less anything through Parliament, he was so desperate to try and stop the Conservatives from getting wiped out that his anxiety remained palpable for most of his short premiership.

Starmer watched all this happen from opposition and, like the child of a broken home, clearly learned the wrong lessons. Vindictive and paranoid, he’s currently acting like the king of a beleaguered kingdom, whose advisers long to poison him. But in reality, he is a still-fresh prime minister, and someone in command of a large majority.

No-one is denying that having a parliamentary party of this size can cause some problems, but he needs to get better at being the captain of a very large ship. There may sometimes be vague rumours of a mutiny, but not all of them should be dealt with by sending the culprits to walk down the plank. The journey ahead should be his main priority; other, smaller problems may well disappear if he begins to get the big things right.