This is the high point. Keir Starmer will never have as much power as he does now. He’ll never command this degree of authority. But despite all that, even in this moment of victory, you could see a chink in the armour: a small grey cloud over an otherwise bright sky.
Today was the first PMQs in 14 years with a Labour prime minister. It felt immensely strange to see Rishi Sunak now face him from the opposition benches, backed by his small rump of remaining Tory MPs. The second round of opposition questions are no longer asked by the SNP. They now belong to Ed Davey of the Liberal Democrats, whose party has overtaken the Scottish nationalists. But nothing has altered more radically than the tone. Starmer has jettisoned the sneering, vitriol and condescension of his predecessor, in favour of a more collegiate and businesslike manner.
You can get a sense of his dominance by the way other leaders speak to him. Sunak constrained himself to cordial questions about Ukraine. Davey petitioned him respectfully to undertake reforms for carers. Even the SNP’s Stephen Flynn congratulated Starmer on ending Tory rule.
The most telling moment of the session came when Conservative backbencher Roger Gale raised concerns about planning projects in his Kent constituency. Starmer clasped his hands together and looked directly at him. “We have to get economic growth in this country,” he said. “We’re not going to listen to the party opposite. They put their case to the electorate. The electorate rejected them profoundly.”
In that moment, you got a glimpse of Starmer’s unique combination of attributes. He is gentlemanly, restrained and respectful, but he is also ruthless. He paid no attention whatsoever to the objection. No matter how genial he is with Sunak, he is intent on defining Labour’s first term through Tory failure: the state of the country when he took it over and the need for urgent action to repair it.
This was sensible ruthlessness: unsentimental, committed to the course he had adopted, and intent on securing lasting change. But there is another form of Starmerite mercilessness, which we saw vividly yesterday and which paints him in a rather different light. It came during the SNP amendment on the two-child child benefit cap, when seven Labour MPs were suspended for voting against the Government.
The seven MPs had engaged in an utterly pointless rebellion. It’s perfectly obvious Labour is going to get rid of the cap. No-one expects it to last the year. Sensible Labour critics have been lobbying the leadership behind the scenes to change it without turning it into an issue of pride or reputation. But the rebels were the usual continuity Corbynists on the hard left – John McDonnell, Richard Burgon, Rebecca Long-Bailey and the like. The type of people who prize theatrical demonstrations of conscience over ever actually changing anything.
You can see Starmer’s thinking. He has a big majority, which encourages MPs to rebel because it won’t affect the outcome. He has a clutch of left-wing MPs who probably despise him more than they do the Conservatives. Evidently he decided to put down a stark marker for the parliamentary party: do not muck about. We’re not going to look like the last shambles of an administration. This is going to be an effective, disciplined and well-oiled machine.
But be that as it may, the decision was unsound. Parties rarely, if ever, strip the whip from MPs for one rebellion, even if it is on a King’s Speech amendment. It’s the nuclear option, the thing you would do to an incalcitrant MP when all other attempts to appeal to them have failed. Tony Blair never removed the whip from Jeremy Corbyn despite his countless rebellions. Yesterday’s decision suggests the rules of engagement have fundamentally changed, that any failure to toe the party line will be met with the ultimate sanction.
We often see this cycle in Labour. The preening, self-interested behaviour by MPs on the hard-left and their chaotic indifference to public opinion damns the party to opposition. Then centrists become so appalled by their ineptitude that they develop a form of control-freakery. Their excessive control then alienates the hard-left even more, worsening their behaviour. And on and on we go.
This approach is strategically unsound. Removing the whip from someone simply ensures that they can now rebel on whatever they like, whenever they like, to their heart’s content. It is far more effective to work with potential rebels to keep them on side – to offer meetings with other like-minded MPs, talks with a relevant minister, policy assurances, minor compromises. To provide the carrot as well as the stick.
It’s easy enough for Starmer to get rid of a few Corbynites now. But what happens later, when there’s a bigger rebellion, involving figures who are usually sympathetic to him? Just dump them all out the party? That’s nonsensical. But to do otherwise would be inconsistent and unjust. His heavy-handedness has created a rod for his own back.
Yesterday’s events might be a flash in the pan, an early misjudgement based on nerves and inexperience. But it reveals a macho, overly authoritarian tendency in at least some of the figures in Starmer’s office and proves that he is at least sometimes willing to listen to them.
With any luck, we’ll be seeing more of the determined Starmer we witnessed at PMQs today and less of the ruthless Starmer we saw evidence of yesterday. At the moment it’s just a chink in the armour. It should not be allowed to become a permanent flaw.