Starmer’s Labour is doomed but it’s not his fault

Keir Starmer has caught a lot of flak this week for his response to the Budget. The complaints are that he wasn’t strong enough, his opposition to corporation tax rises was a mistake and that he had nothing to really say that managed to stick with the public. It has added to a sense of Starmer’s leadership of the Labour party being on a downward spiral. Yet Starmer has probably done as well in his opening year as Labour leader as anyone could have. He isn’t the problem – it’s his party. The reality is that Labour couldn’t win the next election with anyone in charge.

The problem goes well beyond the legacy of the Corbyn era (although his time in charge certainly didn’t help). No, it’s that the Labour party has no ability to change in any of the ways it would need to in order to make winning a general election a possibility.