The election petition reveals Starmer’s Achilles heel

Today the Prime Minister is attempting to get back on the front foot with the publication of an employment white paper, aimed at reducing unemployment in light of the soaring number of Britons out of work since the pandemic. Starmer has declared that his government inherited a country that ‘isn’t working’. However, the question many are asking this week is a slightly different one: is his government working? Keir Starmer has had to bat off questions over a petition – now signed by over two million – calling for an election.

The petition says there ought to be an election as Labour have ‘gone back on their promises they laid out in the lead up to the last election’. Starmer said he was ‘not surprised’ that people who didn’t vote for Labour at the last election ‘want a rerun’, before pointing out this ‘isn’t how our system works’. Starmer has a point.