All you hear in the UK these days is talk about how the Labour Party is likely to win the general election next year and replace the Conservative Party at the helm of power for the first time since 2010. This would end the years of Conservative government-induced austerity that led to squeezed public services, followed by the social and economic fallouts of Brexit and COVID-19.
During this last month of political parties’ annual conferences, everyone in divided post-Brexit Britain seems to agree that the country is “broken” and in need of “fixing.” But not everybody agrees that the Labour Party has what it takes to reengage, energize, reform and reboot the UK. And to borrow Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s own words, “People are looking to us because they want our wounds to heal and we are the healers.”
I am among those who believe that the country urgently needs to do away with Tory infighting and entrust the country to any pair of safe hands, even the boring and less-than-bold Starmer, to try to steady the tiller, give the country some hope and certainty and maybe repair the damage of the chaotic Tory years in Downing Street. The recent Conservative governments have tainted the country with their lack of political integrity, incompetence and constant shifts to the right, toward divisive populist politics, which have made the historic party of government in the UK more like a full-blown Trumpian party that thrives on the oxygen of falsehoods. Though the Labour Party annual conference this week — likely to be the final one before the next elections are held — could have offered more in terms of policies that the Labour Party would adopt if it came to power, above all it was the job of Starmer and his shadow Cabinet to focus on trying to give people hope and inspiring them to vote Labour. Some people attribute the rise in Labour’s chances of leading the country to the story of Tory self-destruction. And the opposition party’s leaders do not need to be geniuses to show the electorate that the country would be better off in their hands after events like the so-called Partygate, Liz Truss’ short premiership that nearly collapsed the British economy, the cost-of-living crisis, the ballooning hospital waiting lists and the collapsing school infrastructure, to mention just a few. The problem is that many voters are still skeptical and maybe not totally ready to back Labour.
Labour have long enjoyed a double-digit lead in the polls, but Starmer, a former chief state prosecutor, is often criticized for being too cautious and failing to spell out what his party stands for. In June, an Ipsos poll revealed that 50 percent of the electorate do not know what the Labour leader stands for. Yet, to be fair, Starmer has managed to change Labour’s image since the battering it took due to the leadership of his predecessor, the ultra-leftist Jeremy Corbyn. A September YouGov poll revealed that 43 percent of people believe that Labour is today a “moderate” party, while 41 percent believed it was “extreme” before he became leader.
The Conservative Party is now more like a full-blown Trumpian party that thrives on the oxygen of falsehoods.
But the picture remains precarious for Labour and Starmer and, as a result, for the country. In its most recent poll, 34 percent told Ipsos that Labour was “fit to govern” — less than the 40 percent who said the same before the party lost the 2015 election.
Mohamed Chebaro is a British-Lebanese journalist, media consultant and trainer with more than 25 years of experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy
Source: Arab Newsds