Hard Labour: Will new PM Keir Starmer's cabinet save the UK budget?

After the 2015 elections, the Labour Party chose as its leader the socialist Jeremy Corbyn and built its program around the nationalization of railways and energy companies. A convinced Eurosceptic, Corbyn went against the wishes of the party’s voters and did not campaign against Britain leaving the EU. Keir Starmer, on the other hand, actively spoke out against Brexit in his role as a minister in Corbyn's shadow cabinet. (Shadow ministers do not have real power, but instead offer an alternative argument to those who do; often, when a change of government occurs, former shadow ministers step into positions of actual authority.)

Corbyn failed to unite his declining party. In the early elections of 2017, Labour showed a strong enough result to force Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May to form a minority government with the Northern Irish Unionists. But then there was a scandal with anti-Semitism in the party, which was exacerbated by Corbyn's strongly pro-Palestinian stance. The main blow to his position was the failure in the 2019 elections. By that time, the ruling Conservative Party was led by Boris Johnson, who in the summer of 2019 replaced May after she had failed to push a Brexit agreement through parliament.

Johnson managed to crush Labour in the northern regions, which had traditionally voted for Labour. The Conservatives promised a “levelling up” program for the country based on the development of the north and investments in local infrastructure. They also offered a clear solution to the Brexit problem with specific deadlines for leaving the EU and a plan for a deal with Brussels. Labour, on the other hand, was still stuck debating potential plans to hold a new referendum. Labour lost 60 seats, an electoral disaster sufficient to prompt Corbyn’s resignation. In April 2020, he was replaced by Starmer.

As leader of the opposition, Starmer was notable primarily for implementing purges: the main figures from the anti-Semitism scandal, including Jeremy Corbyn himself, were expelled from the party. Labour’s attitude towards Palestinian issue changed further after the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack. Starmer supported Israel and for a long time refused to call for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, contrary to the wishes of many of his party colleagues.

The party's agenda has also changed significantly when it comes to economic matters. Starmer's course is pragmatism — as opposed not only to Corbyn’s socialism, but to the loud and unrealizable promises of the Conservatives under Johnson's leadership. Starmer has also steered his party clear of any serious scandal. While the whole country was discussing Johnson’s COVID-era parties at Downing Street and the attendant fines imposed for violating lockdown protocols, the Labour leadership was only once suspected of something remotely similar — namely, of drinking beer at a working dinner. However, the “beer” investigation did not reveal any violations, while the fallout from Johnson’s revelry during the pandemic ultimately cost him the prime ministership.