Keir Starmer PM: Over fifty acts of Parliament – and credit for none
Wednesday marked the end of Keir Starmer’s first full parliamentary session as Prime Minister. Many in Westminster wonder whether it might be his last, Paul Montague-Smith senior counsel, public affairs at MRM writes.
While a parliament usually lasts four to five years between elections, it is split up into sessions, which can vary in length depending on what suits the government of the day. The session just ended has run since July 2024. At Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions Keir Starmer spoke proudly of Labour’s achievements during that time.
The Government has, in truth, moved at pace across a host of issues: new rights for employees and renters; planning reforms to spur growth; investment in our energy infrastructure; reform of the courts; action to reduce illegal immigration and increase returns of failed asylum seekers; record investment for the NHS; reforming universal credit to reduce child poverty and measures to protect children online; an increased minimum wage. The list goes on – over fifty Acts of Parliament have been passed during this session of Parliament.
The trouble for the Prime Minister is that the public still aren’t giving the Government credit for anything. He had hoped that his judgement not to get involved in the US war with Iran – when the Conservatives and Reform wanted us to stand shoulder to shoulder with President Trump – would reap some political dividends.
He tried to make great play of it, but it has been overshadowed and neutralised by his self-confessed poor judgement over Peter Mandelson. The saga has dominated the media and Westminster over recent weeks. This culminated in Starmer feeling compelled to whip his MPs – to avoid the risk of a parliamentary investigation into whether he had been truthful with the Commons (something which of course ended Boris Johnson’s time as Prime Minister).
The Mandelson sideshow is set to run and run. Many more documents are to be published in the coming weeks and the Foreign Affairs Committee will issue a probably highly critical report on the affair. How much of the detail interests and concerns the public is unclear. It’s likely seen as Westminster noise that just leaves a general sense of distaste and incompetence.
What will be more important to them in shaping their opinion of the Government is whether it is being effective in dealing with the issues important to people – the economy, the cost of living, good quality public services. On those, things aren’t looking good and the Government continues to inflict wounds on itself as well as be unlucky.
Inflation is on an upward trajectory again because of the conflict with Iran, with a possible knock-on impact on the path of interest rates. Growth in February had started to look more positive, but the consequences of the US military action will probably kill off that improvement.
At the same time, the Government continues to regularly cave into pressure on issues, adding to a growing sense that it is at the mercy of others rather than being in command. The most recent of these has been on a social media ban for under 16s and, of course, the plan to give ministers the power to mandate investment allocations under the Pension Schemes Bill.
Thanks to the House of Lords (and the Government’s need to get the Bill approved before the parliamentary session ended) the proposals were watered down so much that it ended up being a face-saving exercise for the minister rather than the threat to Trustee independence that it originally posed.
It’s in this context that the Prime Minister and his party face the next crisis on 7 May, when the local, Welsh and Scottish elections take place. YouGov’s latest polling has Labour and the Conservatives neck and neck on 18% and 19% respectively (way below their historical norms of around 30% plus). Reform leads the pack on 26%. The Greens are on 15% (with 38% of 18–24 year-olds supporting them) and the Liberal Democrats on 13%.
If Labour performs as badly as expected, there will no doubt be another panic within the party. But will there actually be a leadership challenge? Historically Labour isn’t as ruthless as the Conservatives in getting rid of their leaders, not least because of the process.
Unless the Prime Minister were to resign, a challenger needs 20% of Labour MPs to overtly back them to start a contest, whereas for the Conservatives only 15% of MPs only need to submit a letter of no confidence to the party’s 1922 Committee, the senders of which are kept private. The bar and stakes are therefore much higher within Labour.
Who would be the leading candidates were someone to break cover? Angela Rayner is still under HMRC investigation for tax issues. ‘King of the North’ Andy Burnham can’t go for it as he’s not an MP, having been blocked from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election. Burnham’s ally Lucy Powell might be well placed having been elected as Deputy Leader. Bridget Philipson who lost to Powell may therefore not have enough support. Health Secretary Wes Streeting is probably too ‘Blairite’ for the party membership to accept.
As with most contests, any challenge would lead to another bout of factional warfare that would probably land badly with voters, who don’t want to see their government focused on their own internal politics.
The Prime Minister is unlikely to resign, particularly given the international situation. He may reshuffle his team, but a reshuffle itself won’t shift the dial with voters, is itself high-risk (attempts to sack and move people can backfire) and can be seen as shifting chairs on the Titanic.
None of the options for anyone are therefore good, so perhaps once again potential challengers may yet again hold fire for now. For Keir Starmer, he has to hope that Thursday’s elections aren’t as bad as expected and that the State Opening of Parliament and King’s Speech on 13 May can provide a platform for a less dramatic, chaotic and difficult session ahead. It can, though, only be hope rather than expectation.