Each ploy required to shore up the prime minister’s position exposes how fragile his authority has become
I
t was said of John Major, the Tory prime minister fatally damaged by party infighting, that he was “in office but not in power”. Sir Keir Starmer finds himself in a similar spot. His government is planning a king’s speech that contains ambitious proposals. But after Wednesday’s pomp and circumstance will come the real test: six days of Commons debate, then a vote that governments almost never lose. Almost. The last prime minister defeated on such an occasion was the Conservative Stanley Baldwin in 1924. He and his party were forced from office.
With ministers resigning and roughly 90 Labour MPs openly questioning Sir Keir’s leadership, this is no longer parliamentary theatre. There is now an open question as to whether he can command authority once the applause fades. Every amendment and rebellion will be scrutinised. A prime minister unable to command backbench loyalty struggles to define the political agenda. It is hard to see how Sir Keir intends to discipline factions psychologically when many MPs think he is electorally toxic.
Sir Keir might not care. His power no longer rests on political enthusiasm, but on control of Labour’s institutional machinery while he remains leader and prime minister. Sir Keir argued that he was going nowhere because no challenge had been triggered under the party rules. He shrugged off criticism such as that made by the departing Home Office minister Jess Phillips, who said he was to blame for a failure to bring in legislation that would stop children being able to take naked images of themselves with their phones. This suggests that Sir Keir’s authority is rooted in managing the party apparatus, not in competence, loyalty or personal appeal.
