WE’RE A FEW weeks into our new government and ‘Starmergeddon’ has yet to materialise.
There’s been no swarms of locusts, no flooding, no Woke Horse-People of the Apocalypse. Instead there’s been a feeling of calm. A safe pair of hands behind the wheel. After 14 years under the Tories, the change almost feels like popping a Xanax.
I moved here in 2016. The country had just entered the tantrum phase of its imperial decline. Politics became panto for an astonishing eight years. The Conservatives treated government like a boozed-up posh family playing Monopoly at Christmas. The economy stagnated as the real-world consequences of shoddy leadership began to bite.
Critics who argued that Keir Starmer wasn’t radical enough misunderstood his appeal. Most people just want to get on with their lives without having to check the news every hour to see whether the Prime Minister has done anything mental. Without any great personal charisma or rogue ideological streak, he quietly swept into power with an eye-watering majority. Winning elections is radical, and it’s something his party predecessors hadn’t done since 2005.
While his campaigning lacked rhetoric, in office his government has so far been aggressive. Perhaps emboldened by the scale of his party’s win, he promised the House of Commons ‘nothing short of national renewal’. The opening volley of proposed legislation has been ambitious. While Boris Johnson talked a big game but failed to deliver, there is hope that the opposite may now be true.
The stakes are high. The feel-good factor of bashing the Tories won’t last forever. Already the scuttling sound of nasties can be heard on the periphery of power. Something much worse than Rishi Sunak looms on the far-right of British politics. If progressive centrism fails, the zealots of English nationalism will be ready for their turn.
With the values of a Wetherspoon’s ashtray that’s become sentient, Nigel Farage’s personal popularity has never been higher. Though his Reform UK party only won five seats due to Britain’s Darwinian electoral system, over four million people voted for them. This makes them more popular than the Liberal Democrats, who earned fewer votes yet absurdly won 71 seats.
Therein lies the truth about the shaky foundations of the centre-left landslide. The result of tactical voting more than any great enthusiasm for Starmer’s vision for the country, its ability to survive will depend entirely on Labour’s competence in power. Reform’s surge, meanwhile, has been built almost entirely on the cult of personality surrounding its leader.
Now an MP for the first time after eight failed attempts, Farage has fallen in love with himself all over again. Parading himself around the Republican National Convention, the man looked radioactively bronze. He’d either spent weeks sprawled on a sunbed, or simply slathered himself in fake tan. The bad boy of British politics is having whatever the opposite of a Brat Summer is — let’s call it a Racist Uncle Vacation. Unencumbered by the burden of governing, he’s likely to spend the next five years spouting the same kind of divisive hyperbole that has dragged the United States to the brink of insurrection. Less ‘Guns and God’ and more ‘Pints and Fags’, but just as dangerous.
Reform’s chances of ever forming a government are slim. But Farage’s ability to drag policymakers towards his position over the years has been remarkable. The immigration question is not going to go away and the government will need a coherent position on it. One path leads to extremist fantasies like deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda. Another path could be to grow the economy and fund public services to the point where working people don’t feel like they’re scrambling for an ever decreasing share of the pie.
Labour cannot continue to allow themselves to be outmanoeuvred by toffs in mustard trousers on issues that matter to workers. The absurdity of a privately-educated former stockbroker like Farage portraying himself as a man of the people needs to be attacked – relentlessly and with purpose.
The son of a nurse and a toolmaker, Starmer has five years to demonstrate to ordinary people that he ‘gets’ them. Being a bit ordinary himself might yet prove to be his advantage. Voters have had enough excitement to last a generation. Tory rule was like a long weekend in Ibiza – too loud, immoral, a fantastic waste of money. Bleary-eyed and nauseous, the British public are due some boredom.
Peter Flanagan is an Irish comedian and writer. You can find him on Twitter @peterflanagan and Instagram @peterflanagancomedy.
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