Battered Starmer Sees No End to Pain Amid War, Inflation, Mutiny

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Starmer and his backbenchers may share concerns about the cost of living. But the attention on Rayner as the Iran conflict rages on highlights the chasm between the conversations dominating the attention of Labour MPs and the daily travails of the prime minister governing in a world roiled by Trump’s actions.

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“It isn’t just the usual suspects that are thinking about successors to Keir,” said Karl Turner, a vocal critic of Starmer. “It is a very large number of the parliamentary Labour party. We must do better.”

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Rayner’s barely veiled criticisms echoed what many on the so-called Labour soft-left have said for months, and another Starmer rival, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, said colleagues would do well to listen to her. An ally said she’d cemented her standing as the front-runner to replace Starmer, arguing her speech landed better with MPs than previous efforts by Burnham and Health Secretary Wes Streeting. 

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But for some Starmer loyalists and others on the Labour right, it was an ill-timed display of disloyalty. One minister said it beggared belief that Rayner had made her first proper leadership pitch while Starmer deals with the fallout of Trump’s war. Another official said she would have fared better by staying quiet during the crisis. A backer of Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood criticized Rayner for publicly railing against her immigration policies, predicting that if she became premier she would soon pivot to the right on migration or quickly lose the confidence of voters. 

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In private meetings in recent weeks Rayner has sought to persuade investors of her fiscal credibility, but as gilts led a global selloff on Thursday another Labour official warned a leadership change and a more left-wing leader would be fraught with market risk.

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For now, there’s a political strategy vacuum in Downing Street after the downfall of Starmer’s top aide Morgan McSweeney last month. On the right, politicians are pushing for a more pro-market agenda, with cabinet ministers circulating a strategy paper which seeks to arm the leadership with a new vision.

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The document — produced by core figures in the Labour Growth Group — calls for for a “transformative agenda,” warning Britain currently “rewards grifters and punishes grafters.” It argues making the link between work and reward is vital if Labour is to win back voters on both its left and right flanks. 

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Policy proposals being examined include shifting tax from salaried work toward land and rent, merging employees’ national insurance with income tax, reforming outdated property taxes and creating new incentives for entrepreneurs. It also argues for targeted deregulation and a shift in clean energy policy to focus on cutting costs.

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Amid all the internal debate, some Starmer allies suggest the Iran war is a pivot point that could re-define his government by taking more of a stand against Trump, helping the public through the energy shock and restoring Britain’s place in the world by raising defense spending and moving closer to the European Union. 

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Nonetheless, they are alive to the reality that his to the economy and mortgages, even if Trump’s fault, rarely end well for the government of the day. 

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At the height of World War II in 1942, Churchill rival Stafford Cripps made a series of speeches nationwide that went beyond his ministerial duties, and the Labour member of the Tory premier’s war cabinet was seen as a potential challenger. Churchill also survived two confidence votes that year, an indignity Starmer has yet to face. 

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The current premier is much happier managing the impacts of a global crisis than the internal politics of competing factions in his party, an ally said. But as Churchill found out when the electorate ejected him from power at the end of the war, even the greatest of successes on the world stage can earn little political reward.

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—With assistance from James Hirai and Alice Gledhill.

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