Sir Keir Starmer will next week make one of the most important speeches of his life. The Labour leader needs to convince activists gathered in Liverpool for the party conference that he is not leading them towards defeat at the hands of Reform UK.
If MPs and supporters go home certain that Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves cannot get the Government back on track, then talk about leadership changes will intensify with a new urgency. It is painful enough for Labour to lose to the Conservatives, but Labour stalwarts will feel a special responsibility to ensure Britain does not have Nigel Farage as prime minister at a time when Donald Trump is US president.
For progressives, these are desperate times. The crunch moment may well come in May, when voters elect councillors across England and cast their votes for the Scottish and Welsh parliament elections.
Losing control of the Senedd – the glass, wood and steel parliament building in Cardiff Bay – would be a devastating moment for UK Labour. The party has had the most members elected in every Westminster and devolved election since 1922. There has never been a non-Labour first minister, and now there is the real possibility Reform UK could be the biggest party.
Recent polling puts pro-independence Plaid Cymru in first place on 30% but with Reform almost level on 29%. Labour is far behind on 14%, with the Conservatives languishing on 11% and the Liberal Democrats and the Greens tied on 6%.
A party needs to win 49 seats to secure a majority. A Plaid Cymru-led Government – potentially with a deal with Labour – may be the most likely outcome. But being relegated to third place and losing the first ministership would be a humiliation for Sir Keir’s party with repercussions across Britain.
Welsh Labour has been rocked by internal divisions but the result would be seen as a nation’s verdict on the PM and Chancellor’s stewardship of the UK so far. Labour MPs in every part of Britain would fear they will also be ejected from the seats by voters at the earliest opportunity.
Labour is famously reluctant to change leaders but members will ask whether radical action is needed to stop more voters in Labour heartlands swinging behind Reform while progressives peel off to the Greens and other options.
The trouble for the Sir Keir and Ms Reeves is there is little opportunity to transform the national mood ahead of the May elections. It is claimed £30billion in tax rises will be needed in the autumn Budget, and if the package of workers’ rights pushed forward by Angela Rayner before her resignation makes employers less likely to take on staff, then the country will not feel more prosperous.
Further scandals would convince Britons that the Government is descending into chaos when strong leadership is sorely needed.
When Tony Blair addressed the Labour conference in 1998, he was able to describe the drama of securing the Good Friday Agreement – a landmark not just of his first year in office but of his premiership.
Sir Keir will not be able to point to breakthroughs of such historic significance when he takes the stage in Liverpool, but he must convince the hall and the country that investment in skills and infrastructure is laying the foundations for growth that will transform lives and communities. He must give people solid reasons to believe that Britain’s borders will be secured. And he needs to assure his MPs that on the night of the next general election they will not watch the country turn Reform’s shade of teal.
Removing a leader who has delivered a landslide would be an extraordinary move, and the party would have to move at exceptional and uncharacteristic speed for Sir Keir to not be in place this time next year. He knows there is no one on the front bench who stands out as a natural Reform-beater.
Just as he survived the panic after losing the Hartlepool by-election in 2021 and led Labour to last year’s sweeping victory, he may well get through this turbulence and lead his comrades to happier times. But he cannot afford a mis-step in the Budget or a true scandal in his team. These are days of danger.
