Insurgent, disruptive or flailing Labour?

When key Labour advisers, and the prime minister himself, are throwing around consultancy-speak words like disruption and insurgency then it’s clear the government has a deep problem. It doesn’t actually know what it’s there for, let alone how to be popular – and the feeble, ever narrower repetition of the word ‘growth’, as growth stalls, is not helping.

Keir Starmer told his cabinet colleagues at the Friday meeting, according to news reports, “We can either be the disrupters or the disrupted.” And Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, is apparently keen that Labour are seen as insurgents, whatever that means.

This mish mash of meaningless labels hides a deep emptiness in this ‘new Labour 2.0’ project. McSweeney is being promoted as the power behind the throne, the key driver of Labour’s 2024 victory.

But it was a curious victory, with its vote share of only 33.7% and its lack of plans for its first 100 days or first six months. The new Labour government’s popularity slid within weeks of taking power – Labour’s first headline move being the cut to pensioners’ winter fuel allowance. This slide was too fast to be seriously labelled an anti-incumbency problem though plenty are already using this excuse (hence ‘insurgency’).

Since then, a low vote share has rapidly translated into an even lower position in the polls – leaving Labour vulnerable to both Reform and the Tories. Starmer himself currently sits at a net satisfaction level of -34% (Badenoch on -15%, Farage on -7% and only Ed Daves netting out at zero).

Meanwhile, in Scotland, the SNP sits on 27% to Labour’s 16% if there was a general election now, with Labour and Reform battling for second place. Labour’s 37 MPs in Scotland are barely visible and certainly not promoting a more social-democratic approach in the face of the Starmer-Reeves vacuous, deregulatory growth goal. The Holyrood 2026 election looks like the SNP’s for the taking. So much for Labour representing the whole UK.

Insurgency or strategy?

The insurgency word is apparently aimed at somehow presenting Starmer’s government as not a ‘status quo’ government. The word also suggests an envy, almost, of the rhetoric of the far right whether that of Trump or Farage. But while Reform is levelling with Labour in the polls, Farage is not popular either. And, as Labour repeatedly explained to us all, in their first few months of doom and gloom messaging, the Tories disrupted the UK plenty – from austerity to Brexit (though, of course, Labour avoids any honest Brexit conversation).

And, ironically enough, surely the language of insurgency, if its fits anyone, might best fit the SNP (despite its almost 18 years in power), a party aiming for independence in the EU and so the end of the UK in its current form.

What the UK really needs is clear – and it was clear in Keir Starmer’s first speech on the steps of Downing Street on 5^th July 2024. And that is change: change from the Tories destructive 14 years, change to rebuild our society and economy, and being clear who our European and international allies are as the far right moves into power in the US and parts of Europe (and change of foreign policy too in the face of the Gaza genocide).

Starmer talked in his 5^th July speech of change (a less dramatic word than insurgency but either word depends on what the change or insurgency or disruption is for). He talked of change to restore ‘service and respect’ to politics, of affordable homes, of world class education for all, of the NHS “back on its feet”. He talked of no longer turning “a blind eye as millions slid into greater insecurity. Nurses, builders, drivers, carers..”. And he insisted: “Have no doubt – that we will rebuild Britain… With wealth created in every community.”

But, instead, we have had months of Starmer and Reeves talking about fiscal rectitude. And, after cuts to the winter fuel allowance, after empty but increasing insistence on growth, and now increasingly a push for deregulation, the vision that Starmer did set out as he entered Downing Street, however imperfect, is nowhere to be seen. And, instead, we have empty phrases about insurgency and disruption, betokening panic and bewilderment.

What is Labour in government for?

Some have suggested that Rachel Reeves, willingly and completely captured by the Treasury is the UK’s domestic prime minister. Others portray Morgan McSweeney as the power behind the throne. But as Labour’s polls and approval ratings languish alongside the UK’s faltering growth, what’s clear is that neither Starmer, Reeves nor McSweeney are, so far, any good at the politics and business of being in power. Nor is it clear what they think power is for beyond winning the next election.

If there is a set of tactics, at least, the goal would seem to be not to upset those swing Labour voters who gave Labour their huge number of seats at Westminster on a low share of the vote – the mainly northern, white, male Tory to Labour or Reform to Labour voters. Talk tough on migration, talk about raising wages (tricky if your only hope for that is trickle down from non-existent growth), and don’t frighten anyone about getting too near to the EU, or having an honest conversation about the challenge and change that is vital to tackle the climate and biodiversity crisis.

Labour abandoned their planned £28 billion a year on green growth even before the election. Their net zero plans have now been placed firmly behind growth of any sort, however dirty (Heathrow’s third runway just one example). And protection for biodiversity has been ridiculed with comments on bats and newts, as if the deep interconnections of the joint biodiversity and climate crises are not the most fundamental challenge of our time.

Instead, we get, without debate, small modular nuclear reactors to power water- and energy-guzzling, AI data centres. We get, untested at scale, carbon capture. We get Heathrow expansion. And a failure to oppose the exploitation of the Rosebank oil field. We get deregulation on bankers’ bonuses, and retreat on tax changes for non-doms, but no retreat on the winter fuel allowance or commitment to remove the two child benefit cap.

Where next?

Starmer seems to be almost absent from dealing with, or taking responsibility for, the political and strategic hole at the heart of his government. And his powerful chief of staff, McSweeney does not seem to have the slightest strategic nous to fill it. Most of the cabinet are low profile. And while Angela Rayner talks a good talk on housing targets, it is Rachel Reeves’ old school fiscal rectitude, deregulation and anti-green stance that is most prominent.

Starmer could do worse than go back to his 5^th July speech. It could be interpreted in various ways by different audiences but there was, at least, some hint of a centrist, social democratic approach.

A modernising, innovative, truly green, social and economic strategy, combined with an intelligent, decent, human-rights embracing foreign policy, and genuine commitment to tackling inequality and poverty, could be truly disruptive. It would bring an end to the failing, old-style Tory, right wing and technocratic approach that Rachel Reeves and Starmer – and McSweeney – are promoting. It might appeal to a wide range of voters and push up those poll ratings. It might create some hope and dynamism.

But this is a government of cowardice and fear it seems. And given the challenges of our times, that is shockingly inadequate. It is a failing government with a large majority.

There is still time for Starmer to adopt a substantial strategy driving genuine change in a way that would garner support. But there is no sign at all that he is up for that. Nor any sign, that his cabinet colleagues are going to fill the gap. And the consequences of continuing failure will be severe for our politics, democracy, society and economy. And that failure, if and when it comes, will be disruptive indeed.

First published in the author’s Europe & Scotland Newsletter on Substack