Keir Starmer can’t afford to wait for the Tories to defeat themselves

‘We’re trapped between the two worlds,’ said a Labour worker during the last days of the party’s ill-fated Hartlepool by-election campaign. She meant Labour was strapped for cash, lacking the many small donations that came with Jeremy Corbyn and the big donors who backed Tony Blair.

Her comment, however, had a wider relevance. In trying to keep hold of younger, middle-class metropolitan voters who already supported Labour while also attracting back older, small town working-class voters who have abandoned the party over recent elections, the various contests held on Thursday showed Keir Starmer was unable to do either. With the Brexit divide still reinforcing ongoing demographic trends that have seen education replace class as the main political cleavage, Starmer largely failed to enthuse Remainers, while making no positive impact on Leavers.

As a consequence, even before the polls closed, Labour has been afire with hot takes about how it should respond: for if in 2020 Starmer appeared to take the party one step forward, in 2021 it has taken two steps back.