Keir Starmer’s Lack of Conviction Could Be a Winning Advantage for Conservatives

In a twist no one saw coming, Sir Keir Starmer is shaping up to be one of the best Conservative Prime Ministers we’ve had in years. Left-wing members of his party must be beside themselves, watching their leader embrace old-school Tory values like a natural. And honestly, it’s hard to see how Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss didn’t cling to these values more tightly if they truly wanted to win over the electorate.

Just take a look at what Starmer has been doing lately: promises to boost defence spending, cuts to the foreign aid budget, warnings of significant cuts to benefits (including for disabled people), and even pledges to send almost 20,000 migrants back to their countries of origin. The guy’s practically living in Tory wet dream territory, and it’s working. At Prime Minister’s Questions, he wiped the floor with poor Kemi Badenoch for the fourth week running, reported the Express.

Seriously, the Leader of the Opposition is looking more irrelevant with every passing week. Her interrogation style is all over the place, and her briefings are woefully unprepared. Starmer, on the other hand, looks more like an international statesman in a league of his own. Against all expectations, he’s thriving. Even in the context of Brexit, Europe is coming to London, not Brussels, not Berlin, not Paris, but London, with Starmer taking the reins in these important discussions. This weekend, once again, he’s set to lead. What on earth is going on?

Right now, Labour is out-trying the Tories. Just look at Starmer’s opening gambit at PMQs, where he channelled his inner Margaret Thatcher, promising to “get Britain building” and restore the dream of homeownership for the working class. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect from a Tory PM, but here we are. He even slammed Tory MPs, including Badenoch, for standing in the way of housing development in the name of nimbyism. Not a good look for the Tories.

Yet again, Kemi Badenoch couldn’t land a punch. Her questions were flimsy, ill-informed, and ineffective. Every time she tried to attack, Starmer would quickly remind her that the policy in question had been approved by the last Conservative government. Time and time again, she failed to make any serious impact.

The accusations she made about Labour’s budget possibly costing 300,000 jobs also fell flat, partly because of her lack of solid briefing. Starmer responded with a list of Tory councils that had been stopped from raising council taxes by his government—leaving Kemi looking out of her depth.

And then there was the plant question from John Slinger, asking the PM if he would “fix the broken welfare system.” This gave Starmer another chance to soften up the public for the cuts to the welfare budget he’s planning to announce soon. His promise to “get those who can work back to work” sounded eerily like something Iain Duncan Smith would say. It was harsh, and if Labour thought it would only hit the Tories, they were mistaken.

With a few exceptions, Starmer has successfully borrowed the Tories’ clothes. His lack of political dogma means he’s happy to pull the Tory levers whenever needed. Whether the left of his party will continue to tolerate this before a civil war breaks out remains to be seen. But, as much as I hate to admit it, we might need to see how this plays out.