Starmer’s sandcastle majority is washing away

In July, after Sir Keir Starmer was elected with a huge majority in parliament, we argued that this was, in fact a sandcastle majority. One that could be washed away by an incoming tide of dissatisfaction with Starmer, Rachel Reeves and the rest. After all, its 174-seat majority was achieved on a vote share of just 33.7%: the lowest for any government.

Few voted Labour because they believed Starmer would enrich their lives. Few voted Labour because they liked him. They voted Labour to get rid of the despised Tories.

Then Starmer and Rachel Reeves announced that the two-child cap on child benefit would not be abolished, as had been promised, and cut the winter fuel allowance for pensioners.

Just five months into the Starmer government, two-thirds of people feel worse off.

Starmer has no explanation for why he is so unpopular except for repeating the mantra that the Tories hid how bad things were and the public finances are worse than Labour thought when in opposition. Few buy that.

The answer is that people might not have expected much of Starmer, but they did expect him to do something about NHS waiting times, crumbling schools and transport systems and the cost-of-living crisis.

They wait in vain.

The tale that there is no money does not apply to Ukraine where Starmer is chucking billions, despite it being clear Kyiv has lost the war. A government headed by a top international rights lawyer cannot stop supplying arms to Israel to aid it in its genocidal war in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Starmer and crew follow the Tories in targeting migrants in the hope people will turn their anger on them, not the government, and on young people not in work or education, threatening to cut their benefits. No mention that there is a huge problem of poor mental health among young people in the wake of Covid and the lockdowns.

Never has a newly elected government been so unpopular: 28% regard Nigel Farage of Reform UK favourably, with Starmer behind on just 23%.

In the immediate term, it is Reform UK which could benefit from this. They sit in second place behind Labour in 89 seats. They are taking safe council seats from Labour in Wolverhampton and Blackpool. In Sheffield, Labour lost a safe council seat to the Liberal Democrats, but Reform was just ten votes behind.

Reform UK has set its sights on winning seats in the Welsh Senedd and Scottish parliament, and polls show they are on target to do so.

Success for Reform UK with their racist mantra of ‘Stop the Boats’, will only boost the racists we saw rioting and attacking Muslims and migrants in August, and the fascist followers of Tommy Robinson.

But the General Election saw five independents elected – including Jeremy Corbyn – on a left-wing platform opposed to Britain aiding Israel but also taking up issues like the need for more funding for the NHS. Across the country, plans are being made to build on that success.

It’s an important step in ensuring disillusionment with Labour does not go to the right and Nigel Farage but flows left to oppose austerity, war and much more.

The mass movement which has swept Britain in solidarity with Palestine has drawn in hundreds of thousands and politicised them. It’s vital we continue to build these mobilisations. Sixty-nine per cent of people want an end to the war on Gaza. We are on the side of history.

But flowing from all this, we also need to build resistance to Starmer and Reeves’s austerity policy. Migrants are not to blame for NHS waiting lists – they helped build our health service – successive governments and their love affair with neoliberalism are.

Migrants are not to blame for falling living standards: the multinational energy companies and supermarket chains are.

Counterfire has set itself a simple task. We have to build and mobilise on all those fronts. But we also want to build around our socialist and anti-imperialist politics in order to help create a socialist alternative to Starmer, Reeves and co.

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From this month’s Counterfire freesheet