Kier Starmer fails to win back voters
Labour have yet again failed to make gains in the local elections. But this time, they can’t blame it on Jeremy Corbyn.
After Kier Starmer took over leadership of the Labour Party in April 2020, he claimed that he will not participate in “opposition for opposition’s sake”, and he stuck to his word. In a year where Tory corruption and failures regarding the Coronavirus and feeding children were plentiful, there was plenty to oppose, however he provided lukewarm opposition at his best.
When it was found that Health Secretary Matt Hancock acted unlawfully when his department did not disclose details of contracts signed during the Coronavirus pandemic, there were widespread calls for his resignation. This would have been a prime time to call out Tory corruption and potentially win back voters with a strong opposition. But what did Kier Starmer do? He said he “calling for people to resign is not what the public really want to see”, which should not be a relevant factor- if someone acted unlawfully in any other career, they would be fired. Why are politicians held to a lower standard than anyone else?
Last May when Dominic Cummings, PM Boris Johnsons top aide, broke lockdown rules, he initially presented a strong front saying, “His actions were an insult to the millions of people across Britain who have sacrificed so much during this pandemic.”. He again refused to call for Cummings resignation and even didn’t join a conference call with other party leaders to present a united front against the lockdown breach.
It’s likely these weak positions that have not brought voters clamouring back to the Labour Party. While flawed, Corbyn generally presented as a strong opposition, and many blame him for Labour’s disastrous performance in the 2019 General Election. If Corbyn was the problem, why are Labour still losing seats in previous strongholds such as Hartlepool? Starmer has spent his time trying to move the party on from Corbyn and as a result, no one actually knows what he stands for.
Labour had a tight grip on the Hartlepool seat for decades, and to lose the seat to the Conservatives all of a sudden is a disaster to Kier Starmer’s leadership. In the 2017 General Election, Labour received 52.5% of the vote in the area, however, that majority shrank to 37.7% in the 2019 General Election- still enough for them to hold onto the seat, but not enough to make the seat a safe one for Labour no longer. In the recent by-election, the Conservatives stole the seat with an astonishing 51.9% of the vote. The question is whether Labour would have won the seat if Corbyn was still leader- I believe it’s unlikely. Starmer’s failure to ensure voters they had a sound Brexit policy would have again caused them this loss. Neither Starmer or Corbyn could have stopped this downward trend for Labour.
That’s the ultimate reason for Labour’s poor performance. If Starmer had addressed the weaknesses during Corbyn’s reign as leader, and actually addressed the peoples fears over Brexit, then perhaps it would have been different. How can people be expected to vote for someone who hasn’t made a strong impression, and coupled with the success of the vaccine rollout that the Conservatives are happily taking the credit for, it’s hardly a surprise that Labour have yet again failed.