LABOUR PARTY LEADERSHIP CONTEST 2020 - Finsbury
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1 FINSBURY | April 2020
LABOUR PARTY LEADERSHIP
CONTEST 2020
PROFILE OVERVIEW
PERSONAL – Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer After a gruelling three-month leadership contest,
KCB QC MP; 57; married to solicitor Labour has announced that its new leader is the
Victoria Alexander with two children;
party’s former Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir
studied law at University of Leeds and
Oxford University.
Starmer. The breakdown of the results show that
Starmer won in the first round of voting with 56.2%
CAREER – first elected to represent with rivals Rebecca Long Bailey securing 27.6%
Holborn and St Pancras constituency and Lisa Nandy 16.2%. He won in every part of
in 2015; Director of Public Prosecutions
the electorate, including across the general party
2008-13; appointed Queen’s Counsel
membership, affiliates (including trade unions) and
in 2002.
registered supporters.
TEAM – Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney
leads a politically well-balanced team The scale of Starmer’s victory gives him a powerful
which includes former MP Jenny internal mandate for change. It also offers hope to
Chapman; former senior Corbyn advisors mainstream Labour members that the magnitude
Simon Fletcher and Kat Fletcher; and of the December 2019 election defeat and the
longstanding Starmer aide Ben Nunn.
previous leader’s handling of the antisemitism crisis
LIKELY APPROACH – left of centre within the party has finally hit home. Additionally,
politician with a forensic and serious it demonstrates how successful Starmer was in
style; his campaign centred on the neutralising the in-built advantages the early
slogan ‘Another future is possible’; he frontrunner Long Bailey had during the contest.
has warned Labour should not change She not only secured the support of the outgoing
course too drastically meaning the party’s
leadership but also the backing of Unite trade union
renationalisation agenda will likely remain.
and the Momentum campaign group.
OPPORTUNITY – a listener who will be
more open to meeting with businesses. Starmer relentlessly positioned himself as the unity
Engaging with Starmer, his team and candidate and did so with authenticity. The senior
new shadow ministers early will be campaign team advising Starmer is well-respected
advantageous as they seek to shape and politically balanced, as it includes figures such
business-related policies.2 FINSBURY | April 2020
as Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney, former MP Jenny Chapman, former Corbyn
aides Simon Fletcher and Kat Fletcher, and longstanding Starmer aide Ben Nunn. The
professionalism of the campaign was noted by many commentators, as well as its
careful approach to policy and communications. The message of unity for the party
and the country is one that will likely be the focus of Starmer’s leadership.
Starmer has already begun to reshuffle his Shadow Cabinet with key Corbyn allies
having been quickly dismissed. The most senior positions in the new Shadow Cabinet
have been given to relative newcomers to Parliament. Anneliese Dodds, who served
under John McDonnell in the shadow treasury team, has been appointed Shadow
Chancellor of the Exchequer and Nick Thomas-Symonds, who was a junior member
of the shadow home affairs team under Dianne Abbott, has been appointed Shadow
Home Secretary. This new generation is buttressed in the Shadow Cabinet by more
experienced frontline politicians. Jonathan Ashworth remains as Shadow Health
Secretary given he is leading the party’s response to COVID-19, leadership rival Lisa
Nandy has been appointed Shadow Foreign Secretary, and Chair of the influential
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee, Rachel Reeves, is now
Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, shadowing the Cabinet Office. The
appointments made by Starmer thus far show he is intent on reshaping the Shadow
Cabinet in his own image – relatively low-profile but capable and hard-working.
More appointments to the Shadow Cabinet and the wider shadow ministerial team
are expected over the coming days, all of which will bear significant influence on the
future policy direction of the party.
Over the coming days Starmer and his team will also seek to gain further control over
the party machine and its structures. They will do so by removing legacy staff loyal to
Corbyn and replacing them with their own people. In addition to the scale of Starmer’s
victory, the outcome of elections for the National Executive Committee (the party’s
ruling body), which took place at the same time as the leadership election, has tipped
the balance away from the far left towards a more moderate composition. Starmer
will be able to exercise control over the party machine more easily as a result of these
internal elections.
BIG CHOICES
COVID-19
The implications of COVID-19 for the economy and society are profound. The same
can be said of its consequences for Starmer and the Labour movement. Starmer
has faced criticism for what some perceive to be his uninspiring approach. However,
the COVID-19 outbreak has the potential to change politics and makes the electoral3 FINSBURY | April 2020
future more difficult to predict, so Starmer’s distinctly forensic, measured and
serious approach could be well-timed. Indeed, he has already said that Labour under
his leadership will engage constructively with government but test their arguments.
Such an approach will ensure the opposition is once again performing its most basic
of functions, that of holding the government to account. For the public, it may also
provide a clean and welcome break both from Boris Johnson’s lack of attention to
detail and from Corbyn’s ineffectual approach.
The unprecedented nature of the Conservative government’s response to the
pandemic, with its programme of government-backed loans, grants and worker
support packages, is perhaps more interventionist than even Corbyn could have
ever hoped to implement had he won an election. Politics-as-usual is therefore on
hold and could well be for some time to come. Starmer recognises that this presents
challenges and opportunities for Labour; he set out in his acceptance speech
that it will not be “business as usual” after the crisis. That said, central elements
of Labour policy to date will likely remain in place even after the current crisis has
passed, including its renationalisation agenda which is possibly aided further by the
government’s response to COVID-19.
Looking further ahead
Labour’s political strategy ahead of the next election will need to go far beyond
just presenting Starmer as a moderate, modern and competent leader. Some in the
Labour movement hope that this could be enough on its own but rebuilding trust
with the public in the wake of four consecutive election defeats will require policy
change too. Starmer has acknowledged that Labour has a “mountain to climb” which
will require the party to change and rethink. Politically contentious policy areas for
Labour, such as public service modernisation and welfare reform, could therefore be
on the table even though the party remains committed to its renationalisation agenda
which is now considered to be mainstream and non-controversial. Starmer will have
to tackle the defining issues of the day and not rigidly apply solutions offered up and
rejected by the public previously if Labour is to even begin to demonstrate any degree
of relevance.
Navigating this path will be no easy task. The left of the party that Starmer defeated
in this election will be unlikely to go quietly, they will arguably be better organised and
resourced on the backbenches with Corbyn also promising to remain active. It will
be made even more difficult for Starmer given he professes to be neither Corbynite
nor Blairite but is yet to fully define his own approach. The dramatically changed
composition of the Labour membership since 2015 makes this harder still, even before
you try to reconcile this with the commitment made by Starmer during the campaign
not to change course too drastically from the December 2019 election manifesto.
That said, as Starmer himself has demonstrated through the gradual ratchetting and4 FINSBURY | April 2020
evolution of Labour’s Brexit position, such change is possible. His mission now is
therefore to begin to restore trust in Labour as a force for good and change so the
party can be a government in-waiting. He has already made major inroads in his first
24 hours as leader, his fulsome apology to the Jewish community for the “poisonous
stain” of antisemitism within the party is something his predecessor did not manage.
ENGAGING WITH LABOUR
There has been an understandable reluctance by business to engage with the Labour
frontbench over recent years. There was a genuine fear that a meeting with the
previous leadership team could make a policy situation worse rather than better. Many
have opted instead to engage where possible with moderate Labour MPs on Select
Committees, All-Party Parliamentary Groups or those with closely aligned interests.
The election of Starmer as leader and Angela Rayner as deputy leader alongside the
new-look Shadow Cabinet provides a more moderate and welcoming public face of
Labour to businesses. It provides a timely opportunity for businesses to step up their
engagement. Although we would expect Labour to use COVID-19 as an opportunity
to criticise businesses which have behaved poorly with employees and customers,
generally Starmer and his team will be more open to engagement and more
professional in their conduct with the private sector than under Corbyn, not least
because such engagement benefits them too. The lack of resources for opposition
parties means businesses are a great source of advice and intelligence which will aid
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