Boris Johnson ended his resignation speech with the sentence that everything may look bleak at the moment, “but our future together is golden!” It was the weird ending to a weird speech that seemed a little too enthusiastic for someone who’s just been told by so many people to go away. But: Boris Johnson is right. If you take away the “together”, i.e. him, then the prospects for the British ruling party are actually good. And bad for the opposition, especially Keir Starmer.
To this day, the British do not know exactly what the Labor leader stands for
When Keir Starmer became Labor leader in 2020, the country’s largest party by membership was in a sorry state. The ultra-left Jeremy Corbyn was so unpopular in the UK that Johnson, also not overly popular in the polls, won an 80-seat majority. Starmer invested a lot of energy and time in restructuring the internal party structures, but he lost sight of the voters a little in the process. To this day, the British still have no idea what the man who would love to be their prime minister actually stands for. When pollsters fill out questionnaires asking people to explain why they would vote for Labor, the only reasons that come up are why they hate the Tories. Boris Johnson’s Tories, mind you.
Starmer is often accused of being boring. He tries to act like a counter-model to Johnson, calm, matter-of-fact, confident, sometimes he tries too hard. The polls on Johnson’s successor show that this is not a completely wrong strategy: Defense Secretary Ben Wallace is currently in the lead among the Tories. Wallace has so far not been noticed as a friend of big stages, rather as someone who does what has to be done with a clear head. He comes across as calm, matter-of-fact, confident.
At the same time, Wallace is considered a representative of the classic conservative line, low taxes, a free market economy, a state that leaves the citizens and the economy as much as possible in peace. Last but not least, bad news for Starmer, Wallace was one of the Tories who campaigned for “Remain”, i.e. against Brexit. To say Wallace would be a favorite is premature, as there are many other promising candidates. Among them are uncompromising Brexiteers like Steve Baker and politicians like Liz Truss who are not averse to populist activism – but also some whose profile is similar to Wallace’s.
The art of the next election will be to address remainers and leavers alike
Whenever there is a general election, whether next week or, more likely, in 2024, the trick will be to appeal to both remain and leave voters alike. And to credibly explain why and how both sides of this polarized country can be united. Starmer is trying to do that, recently speaking out against the rail workers’ strikes and against any return to the EU. Both are uncharacteristic of a Labor leader, but Starmer believes he cannot win an election without the Conservative voters of the centre. Even if he risks alienating regular voters.
If the Tories are clever enough to elect someone who is very different from Johnson and who also replaces large parts of Johnson’s cabinet, then the opposition threatens to lose something without which an opposition has a fundamentally difficult time: an enemy image.