{"id":762012,"date":"2026-02-13T15:19:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T15:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/762012\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T15:19:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T15:19:12","slug":"left-or-right-keir-labour-factions-jostle-for-influence-in-post-mcsweeney-no-10-labour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/762012\/","title":{"rendered":"Left or right, Keir? Labour factions jostle for influence in post-McSweeney No 10 | Labour"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the prime minister fought for his political life before Labour MPs at their Monday evening meeting, even hardened sceptics saw a flash of something different in Keir Starmer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, said Starmer had been \u201cliberated\u201d. He did not have to spell out who from. His comments came 24 hours after the departure of Starmer\u2019s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney<\/a>, a man who has shaped Labour\u2019s modern incarnation.<\/p>\n

McSweeney\u2019s presence loomed the largest over any other in Starmer\u2019s government, and his departure means there are many cabinet ministers, groups and factions of the party who spy an opportunity to define what comes next.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a vacuum in Morgan\u2019s absence,\u201d one senior Labour<\/a> figure said. Referring to the cruel anecdote often used about Starmer \u2013 that he is a man who believe he is in control of a driverless train \u2013 he said: \u201cEveryone is now vying for the central controls of the DLR, with Keir still in the fake driving seat. We really need the prime minister at some point to work out the controls for himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

After McSweeney\u2019s influence, the PM\u2019s most natural loyalists are now on the party\u2019s right. Photograph: Chris J Ratcliffe\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Starmer\u2019s closest friends in politics, including his biographer Tom Baldwin, have often expressed frustration that he has not shown his true beliefs in power.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Miliband said he believed this was a moment when Starmer could decide to be more radical. \u201cI\u2019m one of his closest friends in politics. I have had a frustration, that the private Keir we know hasn\u2019t been sufficiently on display to the public,\u201d he said. He believed Starmer would \u201cseize this moment and make it a moment of change\u201d.<\/p>\n

But what does that mean? Another senior Labour source said: \u201cWhen people say: \u2018Let Keir be Keir,\u2019 they can often just mean he should do whatever they personally believe in.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are those who want to see a progressive pivot, for Starmer to more aggressively challenge Reform UK. Many want to see a symbolic gesture to end the McSweeney era of factionalism \u2013 a cabinet reshuffle, a change to the whips\u2019 office, the end of parliamentary suspensions. Many believe the party needs to chart a new economic course, especially on the cost of living.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>He\u2019s on reprieve until May. I think people looked on Monday and went: \u2018I definitely don\u2019t want a leadership contest now,\u2019\u201d one MP said. \u201cBut people can\u2019t afford a decent life; it\u2019s the most important issue. If you want to win again, we have to sort that out. The current policy prospectus isn\u2019t going to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The faction that will flex its muscles the most in the coming weeks is the soft left, represented by the Tribune group of Labour MPs, of which Starmer was himself once a member.<\/p>\n

Tribune\u2019s executive, which includes the former cabinet minister Louise Haigh, will soon begin to put forward its own policy proposals, on the economy, long-term welfare reform and social cohesion.<\/p>\n

Louise Haigh leaving 10 Downing Street after a cabinet meeting in October 2024. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz\/Future Publishing\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

One soft-left MP said: \u201cWe need a much more coherent economic and political strategy. Yes, the culture needs addressing, but No 10 also needs beefing up. It is horribly underpowered. And we need to turbocharge cleaning up politics \u2013 put some white knight in charge of it and let them crack on, not just a review.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what Keir\u2019s appetite actually is to change anything radically. It\u2019s not been evident so far. I fear he will just think he\u2019s got through this and now back to business as usual.\u201d<\/p>\n

A left turn would be fiercely resisted by some in the parliamentary party. Starmer may have started off in Tribune, but under McSweeney\u2019s direction, his most natural loyalists are now on the party\u2019s right \u2013 including many ambitious new MPs who want to modernise Labour\u2019s economic offering.<\/p>\n

They want a focus on housing, growth and opportunities for the young, rather than a return to Labour\u2019s traditional comfort zones of nationalisation and welfare.<\/p>\n

In the coming weeks, the Labour Growth Group (LGG) will produce a document with the draft title the Beveridge report for the economy, which is already in the hands of Treasury ministers.<\/p>\n

The group, often painted as loyalists to the Starmer project, will accuse the government of having come into power without a political and economic philosophy. But it will say a relentless focus on wages, opportunity and costs is the way to attract voters back both from Reform and the Greens.<\/p>\n

The group will argue that Labour\u2019s economic vision has been insufficiently radical and say Britain has become an \u201cextraction economy\u201d that rewards loopholes, skimming and grifting, rather than building and investing.<\/p>\n

It will name a new list of \u201cfive giants\u201d \u2013 as William Beveridge did in his 1942 foundation for the welfare state. The new barriers are the immiseration of low wages; the insecurity that comes from crushingly high bills; powerlessness that comes from a loss of faith in democracy; indignity, and the fracture of communities pitted against each other.<\/p>\n

But the new MP Yuan Yang, who sits both on Tribune\u2019s executive and the LGG, said there was common ground between the two groups.<\/p>\n

Yuan Yang, who was elected as the MP for Earley and Woodley in 2024. Photograph: Ben Montgomery\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m personally very concerned about where productivity growth is really happening in the economy,\u201d she said, adding that there were far too many companies that thrived on rent extraction, rather than innovation or producing valued services.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my part of Reading, property management agencies are a prime example of this. Residents are trapped and paying hundreds of pounds in monthly fees to them. They get away with it because they effectively have a monopoly over each residential estate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are too many examples of this kind of anticompetitive behaviour. I want economic regulation, including a tax system, that disincentivises corporate grift and rewards hard graft. We need to make clear whose side we\u2019re on.\u201d<\/p>\n

One minister called the report the most serious answer they had seen to the question of what Labour should be for. \u201cReform, the Greens and the nationalists are all eating into our vote because they can name something people feel in their daily lives \u2013 the system is broken \u2013 and point to who broke it. Their answers are garbage but at least they have a diagnosis. Right now we don\u2019t even have that,\u201d the minister said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question the whole party is struggling with is how to respond when you\u2019re losing voters to Reform and the Greens on both flanks. You can\u2019t rebuild the coalition by just tacking one way and giving up the other, you need to be able to speak to both.\u201d<\/p>\n

For many new MPs there is intense frustration at the pace of change and the infighting and scandal that have dominated the last 18 months. More groups across the parliamentary Labour party are multiplying to generate new ideas to offer up.<\/p>\n

Five MPs \u2013 Jeevun Sandher, Liam Byrne, Anna Gelderd, Andrew Lewin and Luke Murphy \u2013 have set up a space called Labour Thinks to bring in guest speakers on how to govern well and win back disillusioned voters.<\/p>\n

Jeevun Sandher speaking in the Commons. Photograph: House of Commons<\/p>\n

Among almost all of Starmer\u2019s critics, there is a desire to see a big change in the way No 10 operates and communicates. At present, Starmer has no chief of staff, communications chief or cabinet secretary, with the roles split across a number of acting placeholders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing Keir can do now is build the right team,\u201d one minister said. \u201cHe must have the right chief of staff, the right lines of accountability, a person who can command trust and make fast decisions. I don\u2019t know who that person is.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not think it works as a shared position. Someone has to make the final call, quickly, and that cannot always be the prime minister himself, but someone who absolutely knows his mind and instincts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cabinet ministers also wanted to see a marked change in approach. \u201cYou make bad decisions and bad judgments when you have an ever increasingly smaller worldview. That\u2019s what leads to missteps and mistakes, because you\u2019re not hearing alternatives,\u201d one said. \u201cWe just need to give a much clearer articulation of ourselves and whose side we\u2019re on and what we\u2019re doing, who we\u2019re doing it for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another cabinet minister said: \u201cI think Keir often gives the impression he thinks it is unfair that we are not being sufficiently credited for what we are doing. Instead of believing it is unfair, we need to ruthlessly interrogate why that is.\u201d<\/p>\n

MPs and ministers are divided about whether a post-factional reshuffle would help Starmer, though the Tribune group made an explicit call when it gave its qualified backing to Starmer on Monday.<\/p>\n

Many say the whips\u2019 office is in need of total reform, with too many of the whips distrusted by MPs because they have personal relationships with ministers or advisers in No 10.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn an ideal world we would do a reshuffle. We clearly need a broader coalition of voices at the top; we clearly need to bring in new talent,\u201d one senior party figure said. \u201cBut at the same time, I don\u2019t know if you can do an effective reshuffle at this point, when you are weak like this. It has to come from a position of strength. We are only a few months since the last disastrous one. I think Keir would have to tread very carefully with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost every MP and cabinet minister said Starmer\u2019s reprieve was temporary. Another scandal, the loss of the Gorton and Denton byelection, or catastrophe in the May elections could seal the prime minister\u2019s fate.<\/p>\n

Posters for the Green party candidate Hannah Spencer among flyers on a noticeboard in Gorton. Photograph: Oli Scarff\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

But almost all said they thought the fundamental work of what needed to change to revive Labour\u2019s fortunes had not been done by its potential new leaders. \u201cI could not tell you a single thing about what the difference is between Wes [Streeting] and Angela [Rayner] and what they would change about the country \u2013 apart from vibes,\u201d one Labour MP said.<\/p>\n

For some new MPs, there is a sense of despair about how shallow the thinking is among those eager to change leader, reflected in the obvious leadership candidates\u2019 lack of depth.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that has fucked our politics since 2016 is the delusion of people who think they can do the job for reasons that are ultimately facile and nothing to do with the massive challenges our country faces,\u201d one said.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil people get serious about that being the test of who should be PM, our politics will keep convulsing and cycling through PMs at pace.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the prime minister fought for his political life before Labour MPs at their Monday evening meeting, even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[12,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-762012","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116063998398786172","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}