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As Sir Kier Starmer faces the toughest challenge to his leadership yet, Alice Denby analyses his potential successors and why the financial markets just crave stability.
With borrowing costs soaring and markets spooked, is keeping Starmer actually the best option to keep UK mortgages rates low?
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0:00
The last time that Labour had a
0:02
contested leadership election whilst in
0:04
power was 1976. And back then you'd have
0:07
a couple of rounds of voting just of
0:09
MPs. I like leader in a couple of weeks.
0:12
But if if it ends up being a sort of
0:14
managed exit, an ordered exit like sort
0:16
of the Burnham camp are wanting to give
0:18
him time to get back in. We're
0:20
potentially looking at the run up to
0:22
Labour Party conference in like
0:23
September, October time with total
0:26
speculation and uncertainty in the
0:27
meantime while there's a leadership
0:29
contest competing for the votes of
0:31
Labour members.
0:33
Surely that is going to just completely
0:35
freak out basically anyone involved in
0:38
financial markets. Yeah, I mean it'd be
0:39
a period of complete stasis, you know,
0:41
every investment decision delayed
0:44
background of a war
0:46
and again this comes off the back of
0:48
having had many years of similar kind of
0:51
convulsions with the Tory party. You
0:53
know, we saw how little it it was
0:55
possible for any
0:56
conservative Prime Minister to get done
0:58
even people who had sort of pretty good
1:01
ideas and a reasonable platform. They
1:02
just couldn't do anything because it was
1:04
they were so hemmed in by speculation.
1:06
But the point is Keir Starmer's in that
1:08
position anyway. Basically since he was
1:11
elected he's been unable to do anything
1:12
because of his backbenchers and I do
1:14
think that they should really take a
1:16
look at themselves because basically
1:17
since day one this bunch of
1:21
let's be honest fairly mediocre people
1:23
elected in 2024 have inflicted defeat
1:26
after defeat on him when he's the one
1:27
who won them a huge majority. I don't
1:30
think they're very serious people. It
1:33
leads us to the question then is is
1:35
Britain has Britain become ungovernable
1:37
which is a question that's thrown around
1:39
a lot. I think one of the journalists
1:42
asked Keir Starmer that after his kind
1:44
of last ditch attempt speech the other
1:46
day.
1:47
Don't think they got a very
1:48
comprehensive answer from the Prime
1:50
Minister. Have we become ungovernable
1:52
and and does the role the media play
1:55
sort of add to that? Look, I think
1:57
that's a really difficult question to
1:58
answer. I certainly feel like Keir
2:00
Starmer winning this huge majority was a
2:02
massive missed opportunity.
2:04
Um, but it's very clear that having run
2:06
his election campaign with basically
2:09
no platform, um, completely failed to
2:12
stamp his authority on his own party,
2:15
and also failed to drive through
2:18
a an agenda despite not having
2:20
[laughter] one. Um, you know, he clearly
2:21
thought that if he could just get in
2:23
people like Morgan McSweeney and Sue
2:24
Gray, they could sort of do all the
2:26
politics for him and he would be a kind
2:28
of managerial figure who would give the
2:30
government an air of competence that had
2:31
been so missing under the Tories.
2:33
>> Sort of like the last guys had just been
2:34
missing all these obvious things that
2:36
should have been done. That we're Bring
2:37
the grownups back into the room. We'll
2:39
just do these obvious things
2:41
and then bosh. Like the answer was just
2:43
to not be the Tories. Yeah. Um,
2:46
but that is clearly not true. And I
2:47
think what you what you also see is
2:49
that,
2:50
you know, whatever kind of leader you
2:51
are, you're you're probably always going
2:53
to face challenges. You know, Tony Blair
2:55
uh was an incredibly strong leader who
2:57
faced various challenges, but he always
2:58
managed to see them off until the sort
2:59
of managed departure that was inflicted
3:01
on him by Gordon Brown, another very
3:02
strong person within the Labour Party.
3:04
>> did command the authority of people even
3:06
on the left of his party who profoundly
3:08
disagreed with him. And he projected
3:09
strength in a way where you thought,
3:10
"I'm
3:11
I'm not going to mess with this guy."
3:13
And one last thing for you, Alice, it
3:14
feels like there are now multiple
3:16
parties within the Labour Party with
3:17
multiple competing but also
3:20
pretty fundamentally different economic
3:22
visions. And some people are saying that
3:24
we need to scrap fiscal rules. Some
3:27
people want continuity. Some people
3:29
yeah, want to use other ways of getting
3:30
getting government spending way up. Is
3:32
there really any single Labour majority
3:35
left now? Look, I'm not sure. I think
3:38
you're absolutely right that we're
3:39
seeing politics split into not just
3:41
multiple factions within the Labour
3:42
Party, but multiple factions within
3:44
every party. You know, I think again, I
3:46
think it's one of Keir Starmer's
3:48
original sins that that he did what I
3:50
think was a great service to the country
3:51
of purging his party of the sort of
3:53
anti-Semites and the corbynites and the
3:55
very far left. But they've now all gone
3:57
green. You know, that's a that's a
3:59
that's a section of the population
4:01
that's always going to exist.
4:02
But I think I would also say that
4:05
Keir Starmer's clear temptation to
4:08
and the Labour Party's clear temptation
4:09
to go for an even more left-wing agenda
4:11
will be immediately punished by the
4:12
markets. There is no more room for
4:14
borrowing. There is no more room for
4:16
more spending. And I think it's frankly
4:18
bizarre that his response to an election
4:21
that saw overwhelming support for the
4:24
man most associated with Brexit is to
4:26
say we need to go back into the EU.
4:29
I don't get it.
4:31
Well, we will see whether Andy Burnham's
4:33
rocket blows up on the launch pad or
4:36
not. Alice Denby, thank you very much
4:38
for coming back into the studio.
4:40
>> Always a pleasure.
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