Sir Keir Starmer invoked the class struggle yesterday – as he signalled a lurch to the Left to save his job.
After his brush with political death in the wake of the Mandelson scandal, the Prime Minister talked up his humble origins and boasted of his pride in leading ‘the most working-class Cabinet in the history of this country’.
The price of the loyalty shown to keep him in post when he was teetering on the brink was already evident yesterday, with the leadership crisis leaving the PM a prisoner of Labour’s so-called ‘soft Left’.
The PM is expected to rush forward plans within days to give children the vote at 16 – a key demand of Angela Rayner, who eventually swung in behind the PM on Monday.
Ed Miliband suggested Labour is also set to embark on a new class war, with the Energy Secretary – once dubbed Red Ed – saying that the PM was obsessed with the idea of tearing down Britain’s class system.
He said the country had not changed ‘enough’ for the better under the Labour Government and that ‘the job for all of us is to work out how to be bolder’.
He acknowledged that the PM had faced a ‘moment of peril’ on Monday when Labour MPs weighed up whether to ditch him over his decision to appoint Lord Mandelson as US ambassador.
He said Labour MPs and ministers had ‘looked over the precipice’ before deciding to stick with Sir Keir for now.
Sir Keir Starmer signalled a lurch to the Left to save his job. Pictured: The Prime Minister during a visit to Panshanger Community Centre, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire on Tuesday
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the country had not changed ‘enough’ for the better under the Labour Government
The PM is expected to rush forward plans within days to give children the vote at 16 – a key demand of Angela Rayner, who eventually swung in behind the PM on Monday
But he suggested the party would now move decisively to the Left. ‘This has got to be a moment of change where we have much greater clarity of purpose,’ he said. ‘I tell you what angers Keir most about this country, it’s class. It’s the class divide . . . He exists to change that.’
In comments that risk alarming the financial markets, Mr Miliband set out a list of Left-wing demands, including his own controversial ‘clean power’ plan, which is blamed for driving up energy bills.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘We are a government whose central purpose is to stand up for the powerless and not the powerful.’
Andy Burnham finally gave his support to Sir Keir yesterday. But the Greater Manchester mayor also set out his own lengthy list of demands, including abolition of the House of Lords, building half a million new council houses and giving local authorities the power to compulsorily purchase ‘non-decent’ homes in the private sector.
Other prominent Labour figures suggested Sir Keir could also now move faster to unpick Brexit after being ‘unshackled’ from his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, who quit on Sunday over his own role in the Mandelson scandal.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said the turbulent events of the past week had left Sir Keir ‘in office but not in power’.
She added: ‘The Prime Minister does not even seem to know what he stands for, beyond the international human rights framework and more bureaucracy . . . the Labour psychodrama has left the country paralysed.’
And Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake said it was now clear the public would pay the price for the fact the PM had ‘lost control of his own party’.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said the turbulent events of the past week had left Sir Keir ‘in office but not in power’
He told the Mail: ‘Keir Starmer’s authority has been shot. From here on in, he’ll have to cave in to every backbench rebellion just to cling on, leaving the country run by the loudest voices on Labour’s hard Left.
‘Ed Miliband, Angela Rayner and their allies now hold the whip hand, and the price of keeping this weak Prime Minister in power will be a full-blown class war.
‘Instead of focusing on getting Britain working again, Starmer is reduced to kowtowing to benefit-backing backbenchers and stitching together survival deals inside his own party.’
But several Labour figures suggested Sir Keir will be comfortable with a more Left-wing agenda. Labour Party chairman Anna Turley said the real Sir Keir had been ‘unleashed’.
John McTernan, a former adviser to Tony Blair in No 10, said Labour had been neglecting its new core vote, which was made up of ‘the white middle classes in cities’ and ethnic minority voters.
He said the PM should ‘go back to his Left-wing instincts’ and be ‘clearer about being closer to Europe’.
No 10 denied that the PM is planning a new class war. But in his first public comments since Monday’s Labour meltdown, Sir Keir said millions of people were being ‘held back because of a system that doesn’t work for them’.
‘I know what I’m fighting for and who I’m fighting for. I’ve got the most working-class Cabinet in the history of this country sitting round my Cabinet table and I’m really proud of that,’ he said.
‘But it is utter nonsense to suggest that everybody gets a fair chance in life, utter nonsense.’
It emerged last night that officials are searching through records going back 25 years to Tony Blair’s government as part of the Mandelson investigation.
Civil servants have been told to search correspondence as far back as his time as Northern Ireland secretary between 1999 and 2001, according to The Times.
