Catherine West, the former minister who is launching a stalking-horse campaign to try to force Sir Keir Starmer out of office, does not know who she wants as prime minister. She just wants a change.
This is no way to carry out the serious business of deciding who should lead the nation. “I don’t have a candidate, and that’s part of the problem,” she told the BBC. Her way of resolving that problem is to issue an ultimatum to the cabinet, demanding that its members choose one of their number to replace Sir Keir – or she will try to trigger a leadership election on Monday by gathering the nominations of 80 fellow Labour MPs.
Ms West’s assault on the prime minister may fizzle out if she cannot secure the support needed, or it may succeed in forcing other more credible candidates to put themselves forward. Either way, it seems reckless to go ahead with a venture of this kind without having an alternative prime minister in mind.
This is a precipitous moment in the life of this government and of the country. Sir Keir had responded to the message delivered by the electorate on Thursday by drafting into 10 Downing Street two respected figures of the party’s recent past.
Gordon Brown’s authority as a former prime minister and long-serving chancellor ought to be reassuring. At a time when the world economy is in a fragile state, waiting for the effect of higher oil prices to hit these shores, it makes sense to have someone with the intellectual heft and confidence of Mr Brown to help reinforce the defences.
It was also wise to divert Harriet Harman back into the fold from her second career as a podcaster. She can lend the credibility of a lifelong contribution to the advance of women’s equality to the government’s drive to protect women and girls from violence.
But above all it was a sign of weakness that Sir Keir felt he had to bring in figures from outside the Commons in advisory roles instead of promoting new talent from within. It is not as if the current cabinet is the strongest selection possible from the available field, but Sir Keir obviously feels that a reshuffle risks destabilising his position.
Ms West’s intervention may now render that calculation redundant, but the prime minister has no choice but to press on. He is right not to step down voluntarily, at a time when the most likely winner of a Labour leadership election is Angela Rayner, his former deputy. She is a characterful personality and an interesting politician, but her policies of ever-higher public spending, ever more market regulation and yet higher taxes are not the right ones to meet the coming economic storm. They point in the wrong direction for the markets that set the interest rates that decide the cost of maintaining the national debt.
A lurch to the left is the likely consequence of an early Labour leadership contest and Sir Keir was right, in the article he wrote today in response to the election losses, to declare that he would not be “tacking right or left”.
Sir Keir should stay in post – at least until someone comes along with a better plan that does not involve the risk of a market meltdown. It makes sense to keep Rachel Reeves at the Treasury too, and to reinforce her with the great clunking fist of her predecessor. Ms Reeves may be the co-author with Sir Keir of many of this government’s most serious mistakes, but most of the pressure from within the Labour Party is to replace her with someone who would be less fiscally responsible. The most alarming consequence of a new prime minister might be that they would choose Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, as chancellor.
If Ms West’s misguided plan to install A.N. Other in No 10 fails, Sir Keir probably has one last chance over the next year or so to demonstrate that he is protecting people from the worst of the instability threatening the world. As he attempts to do so, Mr Brown is a good person to have by his side.
