Voters can smell Labour’s identity confusion and lack of authenticity

The party is unsure about what it is and who it speaks for. Keir Starmer must put pressure on the Tories and remind voters of his strong policies before the upcoming elections

It is time for Keir Starmer to revisit the 10 policies he stood on – policies popular with the public (Getty)

A week in politics is a long time – so said Labour’s most successful leader, Harold Wilson. A year has felt like an eternity for the most recent, Keir Starmer. Twelve months after he took over, pledging to keep the thrust of Labour’s radical policies, Starmer will be taking stock.

Labour’s polling position is mired and his personal ratings are plummeting. Turmoil engulfs constituencies at the sharp end of unwarranted and undemocratic interference from on high, just as we head to the biggest day of voting since the general election on 6 May.

Starmer would have to be living in a cave to be unaware of the concerns about the direction, or lack of it, of his Labour Party and the consequent disaffection this has caused in voters. It was Willie Whitelaw who once accused Labour of “going around the country stirring up apathy”.  Today it is true.

Focus groups show that, at best, his Labour party is seen as dull, absent of convictions or presence, at worst as opportunistic, only following the political wind after it has blown, rarely making the weather.

In contrast, the “greed is good” Tory beast is on shameless, full display, rinsing us, the taxpayers, and creating millionaires from mates without a moment’s pause. This is a government of bunglers, but Starmer has yet to find the passion that can communicate his politics and what he would do with power, who he would stand for and who he would stand up to.

Voters look on appalled at the 1 per cent “pay rise” Johnson will reluctantly give NHS workers as a reward for 10 years of pay cuts and a year of pandemic frontline heroism, but what do they see from Labour? A rise of 2.1 per cent – twice of nothing much whatsoever. And then the SNP offers the NHS workers in Scotland 4 per cent on top of £500 pandemic payment, leaving Labour on the wrong side of the fence once again.

On matters of civil liberties – chiefly, the spy cops and policing bills – abstention was Starmer’s first instinct, allowing the government a free run at our freedoms, only to be alarmed into changing Labour’s position on the proposed crushing of public protest after the calamitous police handling of the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard.

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The danger is that voters can smell it – an identity confusion, a lack of authenticity. They know that this is a party unsure about what it is now is and who it now speaks for.

They may not much like Johnson or this right-wing cabal, but really, they ask themselves, where’s the alternative?

Fortunately for Starmer, he has that alternative. The 10 policies he stood on, policies popular with the public, spoke to hope, renewal, the reversal of inequality and a better country for our people, as we build back out of Covid. Those policies, building on the best of Labour’s values, would put pressure on the Tories if powerfully advocated.

In the coming days, Starmer should look again at his pledges. Understand that they got him elected, that they told people who he was and what he stood for – and that he is expected to honour them. Only then can he hope to give Harold Wilson’s record a run for its money.

Len McCluskey is general secretary of Unite the Union