Will Keir Starmer give Britain the change voters want?

As Britain approaches a general election on July 4, the polls tell the same story they have for most of the past three years: this is a country crying out for change.

Things have been dire for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak since he took office in late 2022. His Conservative Party – whose 14 years in power have been defined by the political stakes of austerity, Brexit and hard economics – fell behind the opposition Labour Party in the polls around November 2021, and the gap has only widened since then.

Barring a major shock, Labour leader Keir Starmer will be the person walking through the famous black door of Number 10 Downing Street in less than three weeks’ time.

Starmer has promised to be the change agent Britain needs. He has pledged to grow the country’s economy by reforming planning laws and investing in a new industrial strategy. He has said he will create a national wealth fund with £7.3 billion of public money that will help pay for the transition to carbon neutrality.

An £8.3bn public energy company, Great British Energy, will see the UK’s energy grid decarbonised by 2030. Starmer says all this can be achieved without raising income tax, although there are no commitments on other taxes such as capital gains tax, which is paid on money made from selling assets including property and shares.

The rest of Labour’s manifesto combines a mix of modest centrism and soft socialism. It includes taxes on private schools to help pay for state education, and special levies on energy companies to fund the transition to clean energy. There are also commitments on workers’ rights, reducing waiting lists for public healthcare and controlling immigration.

Critics on the right say Starmer will have to raise taxes to fund his plans, while sceptics on the left say his manifesto is not bold or ambitious enough to change Britain for the better.

This is a Britain, of course, that has had record inflation over the past two years, seen interest rates soar, seen the pound sink to an all-time low against the dollar, is still in a cost-of-living crisis, has had the longest waiting times for medical operations in recent history and has spent the past eight years in political turmoil following the 2016 vote to leave the European Union.

In short, this is a long list of things to sort out in a five-year period when the public finances are in disarray. The question for Starmer, if he wins, is whether the mess is too big for him to fix and whether he has the political skill to deliver the change he has promised.

Who is Keir Starmer?

On paper, Starmer, 61, looks like a classic establishment figure.

Once a leading human rights lawyer, he became Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in 2008, heading the Crown Prosecution Service for England and Wales – a high-profile role for which he was knighted, making him the first Labour leader to enter the job with the prefix Sir to his name.

Starmer, however, comes from – by the standards of modern political leaders – a relatively humble background.

Born in 1962, Starmer grew up in a small town south of London. His father worked in a factory, his mother was a nurse who suffered from severe physical disabilities, which eventually led to the amputation of one of her legs.

While Starmer has never claimed to have suffered poverty, he has spoken about the financial hardships that have affected his family, as well as the learning difficulties that have impacted his younger brother.
Clearly, these early experiences shaped Starmer’s politics. He has spoken of noticing people looking down on his father for working in a factory or bullying his brother. His parents were politicians and named their eldest son after the first Labour leader in parliament, Keir Hardie.

“He is the first Labour leader in a generation to talk about class and snobbery,” said Tom Baldwin, author of “Keir Starmer: The Biography,” to CNN . “That doesn’t make him a class warrior, but someone who understands the different layers of pride, aspiration and guilt… He feels the pain of the disrespect his father experienced… He talks a lot about his sister, who led a precarious life as a carer, not having attended university,” Baldwin added.

Starmer chose to study law at the University of Leeds before completing a postgraduate degree at the University of Oxford. He initially thought he would pursue a legal career working for trade unions, but as his politics evolved in line with his studies, he became increasingly interested in human rights.

What does he believe in?

Starmer has been on something of a journey since entering politics. He was elected to Parliament in 2015, aged 52, and joined the shadow cabinet just over a year later.

Jeremy Corbyn, then Labour leader, appointed Starmer his Brexit chief after the 2016 referendum.

Corbyn is a controversial figure in British politics and serving on his top team is something that still haunts Starmer. Corbyn has historically been on the far left of the Labour Party. Before becoming leader in 2015, Corbyn had at various points in his long career supported nuclear disarmament and leaving Nato, and said it was a “tragedy” that Osama bin Laden had been killed rather than brought to justice.

Starmer was in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet at the 2017 and 2019 general elections – something the Conservatives regularly bring up as evidence that he is a threat to national security, having twice tried to make Corbyn prime minister.

However, Starmer expelled Corbyn from the Labour Party following an investigation into anti-Semitism during Corbyn’s time as leader. Starmer has also said he supported Corbyn knowing he would lose. Pressed on this point on the BBC’s “Question Time” programme, he said Corbyn “would be a better prime minister” than “what we got” with Boris Johnson. Starmer also argues that he has brought Labour back to an electable position.

Polls suggest this is true, but Starmer’s critics on the left say he used Corbyn and his wing of the Labour Party to win the party leadership in 2020 – pledging a range of left-wing positions such as nationalising public services, scrapping university tuition fees and reversing Tory welfare reforms – only to abandon those promises as he approached power.

James Schneider, Corbyn’s former communications chief, said to CNN : “Starmer is not a man of principle. His campaign to become Labour leader was systematically dishonest. His cynicism and lack of policies to improve people’s lives will lead to deep disillusionment that could fuel the far right or a future grassroots movement for change.”

Starmer has repeatedly responded to accusations that he has gone astray politically, saying he puts his country before his political party and that you can only change things if you are in power.

Can Starmer change Britain?

Whether you think Starmer’s current plan is unambitious, dishonest, or exactly what Britain needs, it is impossible to push through policies without political and personal capital.

Dominic Grieve, a Conservative politician who served as attorney general while Starmer was in charge of the public prosecution service, speaks glowingly of this period.

“He ran his department very efficiently and effectively at a really difficult time because his budget had been cut. It was really impressive,” Grieve said. to CNN .

Grieve added that Starmer was able to be an effective manager because “he is not bogged down by years of political ideology or baggage. He can see what is wrong and he can fix it.” While Starmer’s allies may see this as a strength, his opponents, on both sides of the political aisle, see it as a liability.

For those on the right, Starmer is a man who will say anything to get into power. He is someone who, in their eyes, will support Corbyn, who is anti-Nato and has been repeatedly accused of being a terrorist sympathiser, to get what he wants and is a danger to Britain.

On the left, he is someone who lacks the conviction to make radical changes and, once in power, will not be materially that different from a conservative leader.

If current polls are accurate, Starmer will win a historic and huge majority in the House of Commons. But the future may not be so straightforward. Given the current state of Britain’s finances, the circumstances of Labour’s likely victory, and even Starmer’s own personality traits, this could mean he doesn’t have the blank check that a leader with virtually no opposition in parliament would normally have.

The failure to translate that parliamentary power into tangible results, at a time when voters are clamoring for something different, could mean that five years from now, his moderate, center-left, security-first platform could ultimately be seen as a political gamble on par with what the Conservatives have pursued over the past 14 years.

Source: CNN Brasil

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