Who is Keir Starmer? A passionate Remainer who whipped Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal through parliament. The unity Labour leadership candidate who has waged factional war against the left. The human rights lawyer who outflanks Amnesty International to the right on such issues as trans rights, the “spy cops” bill, and Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
For his supporters, this is electoral pragmatism. For his critics on the left, who perhaps naïvely believed Starmer’s more radical promises during his leadership campaign, his ascent has proven to be a bait-and-switch. To voters he is a blur, more an artful flatterer than substantive presence in the political life of the nation, gently reheating Blairite dogmas rather than offering anything new. Ahead of the Batley and Spen by-election in July 2021, which Labour barely won after losing Hartlepool to the Conservatives two months before, Ipsos Mori found that six out of ten voters were unclear what Starmer stood for.
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