Katy Balls Katy Balls

What would a Keir Starmer Labour party look like?

Expect some strategic ambiguity in the early stages

issue 29 February 2020

There’s still a month of the Labour leadership contest to go but most MPs have already concluded that Keir Starmer will win. The shadow Brexit secretary has led in every category so far: MPs, unions and local parties. As the contest enters its final stage, polling suggests the membership agree and Sir Keir will sail through. His closest rival, Rebecca Long-Bailey, is now seen as a ten-to-one outsider. One bookmaker is already paying out on a Starmer victory.

But if the race seems all but over, the conversation about what he’ll do as Labour leader is very much on-going. Is he the leader that the party’s moderates have craved to stand up to the hard left — or a vessel for continuity Corbynism?

So far, he has tried very hard not to say. He has managed to attract supporters from both sides of the party, parading a reputation for pragmatism to win support from the centre, while using selective cases from his legal career to present himself as a champion of left-wing causes.

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