WILL KEIR STARMER BE CHRIS HIPKINS POLITICAL INSPIRATION?

Britain is more than likely to have a Labour Government within the next ten months.UK Labour's lurch to the right could well be seen by New Zealand Labour leader Chris Hipkins as a vindication of his own politics.

BRITIAN must have its next general election before January 27 next year, with Parliament required to dissolve no later than 17 December. Unless there is a staggeringly complete reversal in the Conservative Party's political fortunes, Britain will soon have a Labour Government. It will be the first Labour Government since, under the leadership of Tony Blair, it won a third consecutive term in 2005. It's been a long time between drinks.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Tory government is a dead government walking. Deeply unpopular, it continues to languish in the polls. A leading UK pollster said this week that the Conservative Party's chance of winning the upcoming election was a mere one percent. Labour, it seems, is heading toward a landslide victory. 

There will be a general rejoicing that the Tories have finally been booted out of office, but it would be a serious mistake to think that the new Labour Government will usher in a new era for British politics. 

Since he was elected Labour leader in 2020, following the resignation of Jeremy Corbyn, Keir Starmer has been busy wiping out the legacy of Corbynism. There is no reason to believe that Starmer's Labour Government will be even remotely transformative, already positioning itself to be 'a sound and responsible' manager of the neoliberal economy. This has resulted in an exodus of Labour Party activists from within its ranks, angry with the party's lurch to the right.

This week Guardian columnist Owen Jones announced that he had cancelled his Labour Party membership and urged that disillusioned Labour supporters vote for Green Party or independent candidates instead. 

He said that Labour had become 'a hostile environment for anyone believing in the very policies Starmer relied upon to secure the leadership', including scrapping university tuition fees and promoting public ownership. 

Economist and commentator Grace Blakeley has been a severe critic of Starmer. Writing in the Tribune, the sister UK publication of the US magazine Jacobin, she has observed:

'Keir Starmer is undoubtedly a timid and conservative leader who shies away from the kind of radicalism championed by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, making him a deeply inappropriate person to have at the helm at this time of unprecedented economic chaos. '

She has also warned that Starmerism is not just reheated Blairism:

'...Starmer’s policy agenda lies far further to the right than Blair’s. If current policies are maintained in office, we will see basically no changes in macroeconomic policy under a Labour government. In other words, Starmer will continue the disastrous austerity agenda that has now become the default fiscal orientation in the UK.

This is not Blairism. This is something far, far worse.'

The election of a Labour Government in Britain will be watched closely by the leadership of the New Zealand Party, licking its wounds after a heavy election defeat. Already displaying a reluctance to abandon the very centrist policies and politics that were largely responsible for its election demise in the first place, Labour's leadership may well claim that UK Labour's election success represents a validation of centrism. 

This would not be true. 

While Keir Starmer may have succeeded in his desire to purge Labour of left-wing policies and ideas, this has come at the expense of its further alienation from grassroot activists and the lowering of public expectations that life in Britain will improve under a Labour Government.

Keir Starmer's Labour Party may be enjoying a large lead over the Conservative Party, but this is not because it is offering an inspiring alternative. It's simply because it's not the Conservative Party. A dedicated centrist like Chris Hipkins though is more than likely to point to a Labour Government in Britain as evidence that it would be a mistake for New Zealand Labour to substantially deviate from its present centrist course. The Labour Party is conspicuously lacking a left-wing alternative figure prepared to challenge the present leadership of Chris Hipkins. He therefore may well get away with leading a Labour Party that goes into its next election campaign looking much like it did in 2023, hoping to emulate the success of Keir Starmer's British Labour Party.