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June 27, 2024 - 7:00am
Keir Starmer’s middling performance in last night’s debate against Rishi Sunak has done little to quell talk of a coming “supermajority”. According to some forecasts, the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) will have so many seats that it will actually spill out from the Government benches and overflow.
However they arrange themselves, the result will look strange and unnatural. The Palace of Westminster itself will seem to be revolting against it. To some this will be fitting. As we’re often told, the United Kingdom is a country of evolution not revolution, and has a political culture that is keenly adversarial. Parliamentary majorities of this size, then, are aberrant, un-British, and — according to the Conservatives’ latest campaigning literature — constitutionally suspect.
Surely, the natural balance will eventually reassert itself. A sprawling majority will be hard for Starmer to control. Without the discipline that an opposition instils, boredom and loopiness will set in, factional hatreds will reappear, and we’ll soon be back to the old political see-saw.
Don’t be so sure. Such will be Starmer’s freak preponderance over the House of Commons that he can probably defy if not political, at least parliamentary gravity.
For one, the candidate selection process has produced a slate of true Starmerites. The tilt towards the local hero in Parliament will abruptly end: the archetypal new PLP member will be young, ambitious for office, an alumnus of the Oxford or Cambridge University Labour Clubs. With deep local majorities and their careers ahead of them, few will have any reason to make trouble.
This is genuinely unprecedented. Even the 1997 cohort of supposed placemen included John McDonnell alongside Gisela Stuart, the future chair of Vote Leave. This class of 2024 will be numerous enough to swamp what remains of the Corbynite Left, and the party’s soft Left besides. As a result, the first great test — Gaza — will be no test at all, and the leadership will be free to take whatever position it likes.
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SubscribeUnless the next PM is a ‘big beast’ politically then boredom and loopiness will set in almost immediately.
Unfortunately neither Starmer or Sunak is a political ‘big beast’ – and that is the General Election in a nutshell.
I can understand why middle class people vote Labour, Brown’s policies made the metropolitan class rich, but it’s absolutely baffling that blue collar people do as well. You simply cannot have open borders and a welfare system. That’s not even politics, it’s just common sense. And as for the rest of it: puberty blockers, blasphemy laws, votes for children – who, apart from a few neurotic academics, really wants these things?
You can’t understand it HB because you rattle around here on Unherd too much. Alot of folks don’t see the World anything like you do. They know the v Rich have gotten alot richer and that inequality growing with a specific inter-generational component too. They see an innate unfairness. Tories and the Right had 14 yrs, promised the earth with things like Brexit and Levelling Up, and then blew it.
Folks don’t buy into the culture wars anything like as much as likes of Unherd subscribers might. They’d be amazed Unherd hardly ever has articles about growing inequality, it’s implications and how we might arrest it.
Starmer will have no money either, and shares the same technocratic neoliberal ethos as Sunak.
If ‘culture’ isn’t important, than why are ‘progressives’ so obsessed with dictating every aspect of it
The problems started in the early ’90s, the Tories under Sunak are the current iteration. This process will continue under a Starmer government including increasing inequality (Net Zero, for example).
With an enhanced majority they will push through even more ludicrous left wing identity policies because they can. Why is the left so obsessed with this nonsense?
There have been several articles on inequality within Unherd a simple search will find them.
They’re obsessed with identity politics, to stop us talking about the ongoing class war.
They know the v Rich have gotten alot richer and that inequality growing with a specific inter-generational component too.
Well, at last you’re beginning to acknowledge that you might be part of the problem, so my efforts haven’t been entirely wasted. Although I don’t seem to be making any progress at all with regard to your appalling syntax 🙂
Why?: 9.4m economically inactive, 6.2m employed by the state, 12.6m collecting state pensions. Working population of 32m. Ratio of carried to carriers nearly 1:1
Sustainable? No. Also the lifetime of every labour administration can be calculated using a time honoured formula which is related to the strength of the public finances, the level of economic growth and the headroom to increase taxation. Provided these are all high than an incoming labour government might get one or even two terms before the money is totally spaffed up the wall for no noticeable return. One which basis Starmer may not even last one term.
“Why?: 9.4m economically inactive, 6.2m employed by the state, 12.6m collecting state pensions. Working population of 32m. Ratio of carried to carriers nearly 1:1”
Such a simple yet crucial perspective. Why is no one talking about this?
Good post. Starmer’s real problem is that his only real taxation option is to weaponise Council Tax. That will neutralise his middle class support at precisely the same moment that the horrific consequences of his de-carbonisation policies have sent the other half of the population running to food banks. So, like you, I think a full term is unlikely – in three years the Left will be more divided than the right is now.
The big question is who will lead the Tories through all this (assuming that any survive).
Farage. One way or another, Farage.
And therein lies the problem. I agree with much of what he says but, as we found with Boris, charisma and competence don’t always go together,
I also think he has things to offer, but I can’t see him in the Tory Party.
The last 8 years in this country have been farcical and now we’re facing the prospect of another 5 years of appallingly bad governance. Almost nobody wants the impending government but it will have a large majority. How anyone can still favour FPTP at this point, is beyond me.
And no, simply pointing to the disadvantages of PR is not an answer. All systems have disadvantages, the question is, which imperfect system is least bad? Additionally, there are many PR systems to choose from, with Single Transferable Vote offering the best outcomes, including 100% local representation. The only good thing that the upcoming fiasco may offer is a renewed public interest in the subject.
I agree that better systems are available – but as we have seen in a previous referendum on PR (Alternate Vote, 2011) the Powers That Be only offer the version that suits them and keeps real choice away from the electorate.
True enough but at this point, personally I’d take any form of PR over FPTP.
It’s strange to think that in the recent South African elections the ANC received a humiliating defeat with 42% of the national vote, whereas Labour could be handed a ‘thumping, whopping’ majority with the same numbers. If Reform get a similar number of votes to the Tories, yet get no seats at all, then loud questions may finally get asked about our electoral system.
Well yes, strange is one word for it.
It’s also strange to be in dialogue with another “UnHerd Reader”. Perhaps another one will jump in soon! Confusing. I got registered with this name accidentally and can’t see how to reverse it.
My Account -> Profile -> …change name & Save changes
Try…
For me it works
Done. So I’m interested to see what name appears when I post this comment.
No. It didn’t work.
I’m sorry, change First Name & Last Name and Save changes
PS. I always do Save changes twice
Test
Let’s see if it worked for me…
It did
The latest prediction I’ve seen gives Reform fewer seats than the LibDems but with more votes.
It’s ridiculous, but not fixable. The only power that could fix it would be the incumbent government of the day, and why would they?
They’ll be content with giving votes to sixteen year olds.
One shouldn’t but if this actually happens it’ll be v difficult to keep a straight face.
PR could of course generate strong Centrist coalitions of Lab/Lib/Greens/SNP etc. Whilst the Right moved to the Right and narrowed it’s constituent base even more. You’d no doubt be delighted at democracy in action. Core of the country possibly isn’t what you think so be careful what you wish for.
And what’s wrong with letting 16yr olds vote? We let senile old codgers vote. How the heck did we end up with Mad Liz.
What’s wrong with letting 16yr olds vote.
They are still at school, so they are not paying income tax or NI. They are bound to like high tax/ high spend because they’re not the ones paying.
They have no experience of politics because they can’t remember any government before this one.
We don’t let 16yr olds buy tobacco or alcohol. We don’t let them get tattoos. We don’t let them enter betting shops or drive cars. Do you think that we should?
You forgot to add they cannot be MP’s. You have to be 18 or older.
And what’s wrong with letting 16yr olds vote?
People with no responsibilities have no incentive to behave responsibly. It’s pure gerrymandering.
A good chance that Labour’s likely huge majority is based on fewer votes than Johnson got in 2019. On a smaller electorate.
Who’s fault is this?
Oh, come on, all the luvvies are supporting Labour. Signing letters and everything! That means that it is good and right and everything will be fine!
Facetious sarcasm aside, I agree with you on PR.
Look at Europe. Most countries there are PR, and it’s an absolute mess. The lack of political leadership in the west goes way beyond the type of electoral system. Something much deeper is at play here.
The problem is the political and technocrat class all agree on absurd things like net zero, open borders and the trans ideology. This is way beyond the type of electoral system.
Last para JV – nothing on growing inequality, cost of living crisis/unfairness and decay of public services. Folks may have views on your main 3, but they ain’t ahead of these 3. Therein lies the problem for the Right.
Appreciate you may contend your 3 cause the 3 I refer to, but insufficient folks buy it. Tactically the Right should have changed tack years ago and spoken to what the priorities of most folks are,
Interesting. I Mention net zero and open borders because they are, and will be in the future, the biggest drivers of economic decline and inequality in the west. The immediate inflationary and spending crisis was largely caused by Covid policies, but there’s not much we can do about that now. I honestly listed trans ideology as an afterthought, just another example of uniparty absurdity.
Last para JV – nothing on growing inequality, cost of living crisis/unfairness and decay of public services.
Unfortunately Labour can only fix these issues by taking away all your unearned property wealth. I’d love them to do that, but it’s not going to happen. They’re going to follow the New Labour formula of chucking a few trivial scraps to the blue collar classes whilst rewarding you with even more artificially inflated house prices, aren’t they?
It is unfortunately the case that demands for PR always increase amongst those about to lose power. Left and Right suffer from same reflex, just at different times.
I don’t disagree with you, however the biggest issue for me between FPTP and PR is that with the former you get to elect a government on the basis of a manifesto whilst with the latter a government then has to be formed and a compromise manifesto emerges. What I would like to see is some version of PR that delivers a government, but perhaps this is not possible.
The issues with FPTP can be mitigated by strong regional govts, like states and provinces, and other electoral devices like an effective senate. Maybe the problem in Britain is there is no other level of govt to push back against the feds.
This is moronic Westminster circle-jerk analysis.
Starmer’s going to get a tonne of seats but, even under the most favourable electoral conditions imaginable, he’s not going to get many more votes than Corbyn in 2017. Starmer himself is less popular than Corbyn was at the time and his platform is even less so.
Starmer will win because the nation is desperate for change – it’s everywhere in the Labour manifesto – except the policies. This is a recipe for a lot of weapons-grade disappointment.
Now, I get that it is totally possible that Starmer has been lying all this time (he is certainly an industrious, if not a talented, liar). Maybe he will take off his mask on the 5th July and reveal that has in fact been the political lovechild of Che Guevara and Michael Foot all along. Maybe.
But it’s surely more likely that he will actually govern precisely as he and Rachael Reeves have promised to. A lot more austerity, a bit more tax, conflict in the NHS as Wes Streeting tries to marketise bits of it, no real action on housing etc. Possibly at some point, the ICJ judges the Gaza situation to amount to something less than genocide but well up the scale of war crimes, which makes Starmer pretend (unconvincingly) that he never supported any of it..
What I am saying is that this will be more of the same deeply unpopular politics we’ve had for the past decade or two and it will be all the more unpalatable because it was served up as a change. The wrath of the disappointed electorate will be hard to assuage – and Starmer is no better at retail politics than Sunak. What’s he going to do, blame the Tories? They might not even be the opposition – he’ll look absurd.
So, what happens in the next election?
By 2029, if the MRPs are anywhere near right, we have to assume that there will be some sort of peace treaty between the utterly broken Tories and Reform (who will have faced a vast injustice in this election). So there will be a unified or at least co-ordinated Right. That alone puts Starmer in trouble.
Meanwhile there are already a significant number of parties positioning to the left of Labour – notably the Greens, to a lesser extent, George Galloway’s mob and by 2029, probably the resurgent Lib Dems will be looking to target more Labour seats. Under FPTP, they might not win many more seats but, that’s not the point. If they take just 5% more off Labour and the Tory/Reform hybrid hangs on to what it gets in 2024, Starmer is gone.
Starmer will face, in accellerated form, the trajectory of Macron. He was elected because France’s electoral peculiarities made it a choice between him and Le Pen. But he disappointed in office, and refused to make friends to his left, so he will now be swept away by the right.
Superb.
You’ve nailed it with this: “Starmer will win because the nation is desperate for change – it’s everywhere in the Labour manifesto – except the policies.” !
I’d go further. In order to actually accomplish change, you not only need to know what you want to achieve (which is far from clear), you also need practical experience of getting things done in ways which actually work and without lots of unintended consequences.
I reckon it’s the unintended consequences that will eventually kill them. On top of the original sloppy thinking. They just don’t have the calibre of people to get anything done successfully. And neither do the civil service (who are in any case specialists in stopping stuff happening not in doing new things).
I’m not sure that its even fair for politicians to hide behind the civil service. The civil service will do what you tell them to if it’s vaguely coherent – they implemented austerity after all and that was essentially asking them to commit suicide.
They couldn’t do Brexit because the politicians wouldn’t tell them what it was. They couldn’t do Rwanda because it didn’t make sense (i.e. it was explicitly a deterrent and therefore had to be nasty enough to seem like a threat to people fleeing war zones but, at the same time, it couldn’t be so unpleasant as to breach our legal obligations – this was nonsense). And so on.
But, if you wanted to build a million Council houses, they could probably do it over a couple of parliaments, as long as the Government was prepared to take the attendant flak and dish out some cash.
If you asked them to digitise the NHS, they could probably do that too. (The first attempt failed, but the Finns learned the lessons, built their own version out of the wreckage of ours and it works quite well.The civil service could surely copy an extant system in place elsewhere).
Starmer could achieve quite a lot of wins for very little complexity and cost, simply by looking around the world for things that work and copying them.
If you asked them to digitise the NHS, they could probably do that too.
Sorry, that’s a complete non-starter. I’ve been there. The public in general have only the faintest idea of the apocalyptic scale of the waste that’s been engendered by government IT projects.
Ain’t that the truth! My son worked for a short time for a company supposedly sorting out the it for the NHS.
If you put it in a novel, no one would believe it!
Catastrophic waste of time and money, lots of none cooperation from different trust. No agreement to link systems together and a load of useless managers and accountants getting in the way of work being completed.
Makes HS2 look positively juvenile compared too!
As opposed to the calibre of people in which Party? Please tell me you don’t mean the crackpots and loons in Reform?
There is a whiff of snobbery here too PB.
That said we have had a belly full of politicians in power thinking sloganeering gets anything done. Fact Starmer actually run a large organisation, and praised for how he did that, just might mean we see a bit more conversion of rhetoric into real change. We’ll see, but you may be about to have a PM who was not an MP until into their 50s which should in theory please you…although I suspect not.
Now if we want more industry leaders in power what do we need to pay our MPs? It’s an interesting dilemma.
Calibre is less important than mission.
If you give a brilliant person a stupid job to do, then the stupidity of the job trumps the brilliance of the individual almost every time.
Case in point, the current PM. By all accounts, he’s stuffed with brains and extraordinariliy dilligent but he’s constantly tring to do stupid things like Rwanda because those things are the mission of his party.
Osbourne too is surely brilliant. But his brilliance was in harness to a stupid idea – austerity.
Starmer is doubtless smarter than I give him credit for. But he too is in thrall to stupid ideas (the Ming Vase and austerity again) and the outcome of his politics will be determined by that rather than by his personal brilliance (or lack thereof)
You’re right, hence the old adage “A mediocre strategy well implemented will beat a brilliant strategy poorly implemented every time.”
Whilst admiring much of your analysis, i think it’s unfair to characterise the article as “Westminster circle-jerk analysis”. It’s a short-form Unherd piece; it does what it says on the tin, and i thought the author had a refreshing turn of phrase or two up his sleeve. I hope to read more articles from him on this platform.
The key ‘rebel’ current in the coming Labour administration will be the removal of Starmer if necessary to deliver the kind of national leadership which, supported by the Liberals and SNP, will refashion the EU trade agreement into associate single market membership then point the electorate towards a next-generational referendum on membership of the single European currency (when enough older Leave voters have passed on or lost interest).
There will be some messing around with identity politics too – more liberalism on gender self-identification and tolerance of Islamism – but the key political thrust is Eurofederalism for Labour. In that fashion, I believe Ms Reeves will supplant the effete Starmer.
The Conservatives have changed PM without calling an election 3 times since 2015. What is to stop Labour from doing the same? The point about a big majority undermining discipline is well made. Starmer being replaced by someone further to the Left should not be ruled out.
Even though will be pleased to see Starmer get a chance in Number 10 concur with Author some considerable danger in a super-majority. Suspect Starmer smart enough to think similar. What it should do, if it happens, is force him to be radical fast.
Of course for a decent period at least the internecine warfare to come on the Right may be a significant distraction.
There is no such thing as a ‘supermajority’ in UK Paliament. A majority of one is enough. There are landslides however such as 1906, 1945, 1983, 1996 and probably 2024 but that’s a different matter.
I have to say I disagree that a labour super-majority will prove enduring. Like all complex systems things can have the outward appearance of robust stability only to suddenly and catastrophically spiral out of control by caused by some small perturbation.
It is likely that labour will get their majority with fewer votes than Corbyn got in 2019, so what we will have is the government, the civil service, the church the BBC, the judiciary, the house of lords – indeed pretty much all the institutions of the country packed with left leaning and socialist types, versus a demos the majority of whom are not. This is going to create some spectacular tensions in a very short period of time.
Furthermore, whatever its majority labour will have very little room for genuine manoeuvre, at least within the confines of its ideology, which means it will be unable to fix anything, and eventually the patience of the demos will run out.
No, this election is about reality vs. luxury beliefs. Nobody seems to be bothered with fixing reality but instead think the answer lays in ever more luxurious outcomes.
Just as Keir Starmer has never sought to outargue the Labour Left, but has instead deployed the Rule Book to kick it out from Jeremy Corbyn down, so as Prime Minister he would seek to restore as much as possible of the order that obtained between Blair and Brexit, much of which in fact pre-dated 1997 and most of which is still in place on paper, while simply criminalising in law and in practice anything like the dissent from it that first seriously manifested itself with the emergence of Corbyn in the summer of 2015, before exploding in, as and from the 2016 referendum result. Vast areas of public policy, including the National Health Service in the form of a “Mission Delivery Board”, would be handed over to heavenly bodies that it would be illegal to attempt to influence. And where would the members of that Board come from? There is a word for such a merger of state and corporate power. Accordingly, the Office for Value for Money would be the last nail in the coffin of democratic political control over economic policy, while Community Payback Boards would deliver professional-managerial class justice without restraint, and those two changes would not be coincidental. In his manifesto or otherwise, Starmer is completely open about all of this. Believe him.
Majority or super-majority makes no difference. The metropolitan elites have a firm grip on the two main parties(and the LibDems). Same old failed policies, but with different spin, will produce the same old outcomes. Until someone challenges the status quo we will remain unproductive in the private and public sectors and sanctimoniously irrelevant in the wider world.
This was Peter Hitchens’ original prediction: the two main parties are now political corpses, just propping each other up. Take out the Tories, and Labour will collapse shortly afterwards.
He’s changed his mind to voting Conservative this time around, but it may be that his original prediction is correct.