Why Keir Starmer appears to be winning and what Phillips’ withdrawal means for the race.
And then there were four. Jess Phillips has withdrawn from the Labour leadership contest.
To some extent, this was a recognition of reality which would have dawned sooner or later. The new Labour leadership rules, adopted in 2018, initially intended to guarantee members more choice have had the effect of restricting it. MPs are no longer the sole gate keepers, candidates must either secure three affiliated organisations, one of which must be unions, or 5% of CLPs. That doesn’t sound onerous but the union pool to fish in isn’t a large one and CLPs tend to cluster around a couple of candidates. Thus far Phillips has failed to win a single CLP nomination. USDAW was, perhaps, her strongest hope of securing major union backing and yesterday they opted for Keir Starmer. The writing was on the wall.
Phillips also ran a lacklustre campaign with a couple of major mistakes. She has a vivacious and appealing personality, with a great backstory and strong critique of Boris Johnson and how Labour can succeed in a media environment not well disposed to the party. However, she has never been in the Shadow Cabinet and sometimes that showed. There is a major transition from being everyone’s favourite backbencher, influence without formal responsibility and stepping into the arena. That was clear in Phillips’ campaign.
She also suffered from something of the Liz Kendall syndrome. She wanted to “speak truth” but perhaps, she spoke a few too many. In a Labour Party leadership contest, which is essentially Labour’s primary as to who their Prime Minister designate is to be, you have to, well, appear to like Labour. As Liz Kendall found, a relentless desire to reveal home truths, however noble, doesn’t do much to endear you to the electorate to which you must appeal. Candidates must walk a tight rope between appearing credible, recognising the scale of the problem before them whilst also making the party feel good about itself. Phillips, like Kendall, veered away from the latter far too much. Moreover, Phillips as someone whose politics are recognisably and credibly left wing, allowed herself to be seen as the candidate of the Blairite right- which in a party which admires Corbyn 2–1 over Blair, is a death knell.
She also struggled for the same reason Starmer is doing well. Touring the country, talking to Labour members, I have been struck by the profound difference in mood among party members compared to 2015. Then, the party seemed stunned and angry, confused as to why it had lost. It pulled the Corbyn lever partly because he offered them sharp edged, clear diagnoses (and prescriptions) for what had gone wrong. The anger made members roll the the dice.
Today, the mood which hangs over the party isn’t anger, it’s fear. The scale of the election defeat has (rightly) terrified members. There is recognition that one more wrong move and the party could be finished. Fear, rather than anger, is leading many members to fold, rather than gamble. They believe that the party can no longer afford factionalism or division, that what is left of it must unite. These impulses are leading them inexorably to Starmer. He looks and appears every inch the “break the glass in case of emergency” candidate; One leading member of the left considering voting for him observed to me “we just have to face it, he looks like power. You can’t underestimate that.” Moreover, he occupies a place at the nexus of several crucial Labour Party power circles: A leading Shadow Cabinet minister of the Corbyn years but who many “moderates” instinctively feel is one of them (Thornberry on paper is the same but arguably has more baggage from her Miliband-era days). Like many successful Labour leadership aspirants, his politics are opaque, which is helpful. In Stockport, on Friday, I was struck by the number of local members (councillors, no less) who had supported Corbyn in 2015 and 16 who were now seamlessly moving to the Starmer column. When I asked why, they rejected the idea that this was a contradiction. “He is of the left” one told me, “why shouldn’t I vote for him?” Senior members of his campaign have told me that this isn’t schmaltz: “Some moderates seem to think they’ll get the party back with Keir. But we keep telling them to think again. He is on the left, he’s further to the left than me and some of the others on the campaign. He’s just not factional, that’s the difference.”
This idea appears to have suffused among the membership. The local members in Stockport, for example, told me they thought it likely that their CLP, which nominated Corbyn last time, would go for Starmer too. As well as being assured that Starmer wouldn’t dispatch Corbynism, they thought that RLB was “too divisive”, that her election would lead to more intra-party warfare which the party can ill-afford. Unity, was once more, Starmer’s great weapon. The party no longer seems to be seeking hard edged right angles but instead softer and blurrier lines. They don’t seem to want more Corbynite upheaval from RLB nor Phillips style truth telling. They want to be told and to feel that it’s going to be alright: safety first. That inevitably favours Starmer.
Phillips’ withdrawal could complicate this for Starmer. Her presence on the ballot was useful for his cause. It meant that implicitly there was always someone to his “right”, someone that the leftist could think, “well at least it’s not Jess Phillips.” With fewer candidates in the race, that task becomes harder. He will have to be careful not to come to be seen as the candidate of the dreaded Blairites; he may have to tack further left.
On the other hand, if he can continue to walk the tightrope, her absence does mean that he is more likely to win on the first round. Phillips’ has definitely succeeded in drawing new members into the party, many of whom will now vote for Starmer first, rather than second. A first round victory would be helpful for Starmer’s credibility and authority over the party. The last thing a unity candidate needs is eking out an Ed Miliband style micro-win.
Much will depend on what happens with Lisa Nandy and Emily Thornberry, which I’ll write about separately. GMB backing Nandy (she is close to parts of its leadership) is an enormous coup. Had they backed Starmer, it would have been very likely that this would have become a two horse race and all over. Thornberry, after a good hustings performance, has picked up two CLPs overnight- half the number as RLB, despite zero institutional support. Nandy now seems certain to make it to the ballot paper and that will shift the the chemistry of the choice and of every hustings to come. There’s a long way to go, at this point in 2015, it was Burnham’s to lose. But one thing to me is clear- whichever party can best appear to guarantee unity, is likely to win. If that stays as Starmer, it’s his for the taking. Should he become tarnished, damaged, make a significant mis-step, that role could be taken by Nandy. Her place in the race means that there is a spare for the non-Corbynite elements of the party to move to. In short- it reduces his margin for error.
