The PM’s in-tray is overflowing. But he can’t afford to neglect the real issue that is distorting our politics and the way we live
At home and abroad, Labour and its leader are under siege. Though the Gorton and Denton result is history now, the repercussions roil his party and underpin the fight for its future.
Abroad, the policy rift within the Labour tribe is just as bad, with the fear that the party will be dragged backwards into the wreckage of another illegal war in the Middle East. Yet again Labour and Starmer are damned both ways, with much of the party raging at its leader and a “very disappointed” Donald Trump angry, not appeased.
In seeking a clear way through the multiple rocky paths before him, the prime minister could sensibly start by looking again, and at last, at the way he was charged with those responsibilities.
With the Middle East in flames and oil prices soaring, the representation of the people bill got scant attention when it passed through parliament on Monday. It was conceived to reform the electoral system, but it’s notable for what is absent: changes that must now be made to first past the post (FPTP). Last week’s byelection shocked Labour, but it also shocked the Institute for Government, that sober monitor of due process, into sounding the alarm about the risk to democracy itself when a system built for two parties no longer fits a multiparty world. Director Hannah White warned of a message from Gorton and Denton, saying the system has become “dangerous” when people are forced to vote tactically, but can’t know where best to place that X. This denial of democracy, she cautioned, may “undermine the legitimacy of the future governments it delivers”.
