Keir Starmer’s new deputy takes huge swipe at PM after being elected | Politics | News
New Labor deputy leader Lucy Powell addressed a party in crisis and took a virtual swipe at Sir Keir Starmer in her first speech since taking the reins from Angela Rayner. He said Reform UK’s Nigel Farage had managed to escape with a “political megaphone” and said people believed the Labor Government had not been “brave enough” to deliver change since coming to power last year.
Although it was backed by a promise to help the Prime Minister in his “fight”, it is a rather public punishment for a leader who watched the Caerphilly heartland fall to Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru and Labor being pushed into a humiliating third place behind Reform.
His message was clear: Labor is “in the fight of our lives” for “the future of the country and democracy” and despite holding 401 of the 650 seats at Westminster, the Government has allowed Mr Farage’s rebel party to set the agenda. This is a clear torment.
If that wasn’t hard enough for Sir Keir to hear, he issued a warning against trying to park Labor tanks on Reform’s turf.
He said: “We will win not by trying to leave Reformation behind, but by building a broad, progressive consensus.”
This will be seen as a blow against the Government’s acquiescence, warning ministers not to try to roll back Reform at the ballot box by adopting increasingly tough positions on immigration. He said Mr Farage “wanted to blame immigration for all the country’s problems” but “they rejected that”.
It’s no surprise that Sir Keir called for unity when he took to the stage behind her.
“We must unite,” he said. “We must continue to focus on the battle that, in my view, is decisive for the soul of our nation.”
He accused both Reform and the Conservatives of peddling “a politics of division and hatred that wants to take this great country into a very dark place”, adding: “Whoever we are in this party, our duty is to unite every single person in this country who opposes this policy and defeat it once and for all.”
This sounded like the outline of Labour’s survival strategy: rally people who tend to vote for the Greens, the Liberal Democrats, Jeremy Corbyn’s new party and other Left-wing rivals, saying this is how you will stop the country’s slide to the far Right.
It looks like he’s learned at least one lesson from the Caerphilly by-election for the Welsh Parliament. People will vote against Reformation.
In this case, they supported Plaid, which for decades has presented itself as a left-leaning alternative to the Labor Party. Sir Keir’s job is to convince people who don’t want Mr Farage to become Prime Minister that voting Labor is the best way to stem the teal tide.
But if May’s council elections in Scotland, Wales and England prove a disaster for Labour, her days in charge could be over. Expect criticism that will be less diplomatically restrained than Ms. Powell’s opening rebuke.
It is the Prime Minister who is fighting the fight of his life.
