Had it not been for the Iran crisis, Labour’s first major political announcement since the party’s calamitous defeat in the Gorton and Denton by-election would have been arguably the biggest political story of the week.
Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, pushed ahead with what is intended to be the party’s forceful response to the competition it faces from Reform UK by declaring an end to permanent refugee status and the removal of state support for some asylum seekers.
It immediately put her on a collision course with many Labor MPs, but also left the party’s soft-left majority, which had been pushing for a more progressive offer in recent weeks, wondering: “Is that it?”
The victory speech in Gorton and Denton given by Hannah Spencer, the newly appointed Green Party MP, contained the sort of lines that many on the Labor benches long to hear their leader utter, or even nod to. Working people had become “fed up with enriching others” and were now wondering how much their work would pay off, the young plumber said.
However, while Keir Starmer’s troops were expecting at least some red meat this week from his party leaders to counter the Green challenge to financially squeezed traditional Labor voters, his knee-jerk response was to send a letter to MPs in which he repeated a line of attack that sought to paint Zack Polanski’s party as extremist.
Several at Monday’s Labor Party parliamentary meeting took issue with the message of the letter, and one senior minister shared his disappointment with the Guardian that Starmer had not responded to the loss of Gorton by talking about the cost of living.
With no progressive offer for Labor MPs, the prime minister now faces a growing rebellion against Mahmood’s plans, which were intended to at least cauterize the immigration issue in the public eye and could create room to tilt left.
The MPs’ revolt includes a letter organized by Tony Vaughan, Labor MP for Folkestone and Hythe, who said it was signed by 100 colleagues who believed the proposals undermined the government’s commitment to integration and social cohesion.
Another MP, Stella Creasy, used a Guardian article to set out a vision of what she described as “real work”: an alternative path for the party to the Blue Labor doctrine associated with Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s recently deceased chief of staff.
Behind the scenes, Labor MPs were openly divided after party bosses told them to share Mahmood’s immigration proposals. “Of course not,” one responded, with others echoing the sentiment, while others defended the plans.
Those Labor MPs who had hoped that McSweeney’s departure last month would have freed their leader from what some had come to regard as a Rasputin-like influence would have been disappointed by Starmer’s glowing speech at his former aide’s farewell in a Westminster pub on Wednesday night.
Since his departure, Labor MPs had hoped to have a greater say in policy-making. No 10 has been working to improve relations with MPs, with invitations to Ladies and more conversations with aides.
But many feel it is not enough, citing what they said was a limited opportunity to contribute to Mahmood’s proposals. Others feel the same way about next week’s plans for court reform.
All of this makes for a heady cocktail of dissent for the prime minister as the clock ticks towards local elections in May, when an expected Labor electoral bloodbath – partly at the hands of the Greens – could be a dangerous moment for his leadership.
Even in a week in which Starmer focused on the Middle East, it will not have escaped his notice that Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham – two potential soft-left leadership rivals – were making eye-catching speeches. Labor MPs will also have been reminded of their availability.
