At long last, Starmer is out. Can Burnham bring new hope to Britain?

The myth-making has begun. Allies of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are claiming that he is a decent man who has done his best for his country; a brave and principled politician whose heroic efforts rescued the Labour Party from bankruptcy and oblivion.

In the words of Labour MP Luke Akehurst, a close ally, Starmer “achieved what many said was impossible by taking Labour from a broken party, morally compromised by antisemitism and extremism, at the end of the Corbyn era, to a landslide win”.

Starmer himself boasted on the steps of Downing Street on Monday that he leaves office with Britain’s reputation restored as a country that stands for “decency, respect and the rule of law”.

If only a small part of this was true, Starmer would not have been forced out. But it’s not.

Starmer posed as a man of the left, then brought the language of Enoch Powell back to mainstream British politics by warning that the country risked turning into an “island of strangers” without stronger immigration controls.

He imported the morality of the gutter into government with the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.

When shameful details of Mandelson’s friendship with the late paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein became public, Starmer would not take responsibility for his mistake. 

Instead, he lashed out at others, in particular the permanent secretary at the foreign office, Olly Robbins. Starmer smeared Robbins for failing to brief him, and then he sacked him.  

Manipulation and deceit

Starmer’s claim on Monday morning that he had restored “decency, respect and the rule of law” to Britain is a cynical and straightforward lie.

As leader of the opposition, Starmer signalled his support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s collective punishment of Gaza, with water and fuel withheld from the civilian population – a war crime.  

Far from defending the rule of law, he brought a new authoritarianism to British justice

Once in Downing Street, Starmer continued to arm Israel as it carried out what the United Nations, along with a majority of scholars, now view as a genocide.

Incredibly, he leaves office without accusing Israel of ever committing war crimes.

Starmer undermined trial by jury. He attacked migrants. Far from defending the rule of law, he brought a new authoritarianism to British justice, especially when he widened the definition of terrorism to include supporters of Palestine Action. 

Rather than restoring public service, as he promised upon taking office less than two years ago, he was found to have accepted gifts including clothing, designer glasses, and even the use of a flat owned by a rich friend. 

Advised by his now-disgraced former chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, Starmer was an expert at the politics of manipulation and deceit. 

He ran for the Labour leadership six years ago posing as a “friend” of former leader Jeremy Corbyn, and the candidate of the left. To ingratiate himself with traditional party members, he made 10 pledges in his leadership manifesto – then ripped them up once he’d won.

In a gross act of betrayal, he turned brutally on Corbyn and his supporters, forcing them out of the party. In this way, Starmer split the Labour Party and created the conditions for the rise of Zack Polanski’s Greens.

Different kind of politics

Meanwhile, Starmer lurched Labour to the right as part of a strategy to win back Reform voters. Yet he is reportedly still blaming others for his downfall. 

“He gave everything to Labour, including sacrificing much of his children’s teenage years to help make the party electable. He feels deeply betrayed, especially by those he believed were loyal to him,” Politics UK quoted a Labour source as saying.

Starmer should not blame others. He needs only to look in the mirror if he wants to understand his failure as prime minister.

Andy Burnham, now nailed on as Starmer’s successor, must urgently learn the lessons from the outgoing leader’s mistakes. Starmer, deeply influenced by Mandelson, inherited the Blairite belief that a politician needs to lie to obtain power.

Starmer tried to copy former Prime Minister Tony Blair by turning on the Labour left and cultivating billionaires instead. This meant forming alliances with Britain’s far-right media, especially the Murdoch press – another mistake.

These strategies worked well for Blair. They have proved disastrous for Starmer. 

Burnham will be in Downing Street soon. He can succeed, and anyone who loves Britain will hope he does so. But he can only succeed by reverting to a different kind of politics. 

He stands a chance because, most paradoxically, unlike Starmer and Blair, he is not a natural member of the metropolitan elite. Like Harold Wilson in the 1970s, Burnham comes from the north. His father was a telephone engineer and his mother a receptionist. 

Burnham has been a great success as mayor of Manchester. So long as he remembers to govern in the interests of ordinary people and not billionaires; to keep his integrity, resist blandishments and be himself, Burnham stands a chance of succeeding when so many have failed. 

All reasonable people should be on his side. It’s time Britain had a decent prime minister – and we’ve never needed one more.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.