A few very good days for the Labor Party just got even better. In a normal week, the removal of Boris Johnson and the summer succession battle between a number of unconvincing Tory leadership contenders would mean that Labour’s cup has already run over. But this has been an extraordinary political week. And it turns out he has another big reveal up his sleeve. It came just before midday on Friday with the news that Durham Police will not be issuing fixed penalty notices to Keir Starmer or Angela Rayner.
The immediate political consequence is that it is now beyond doubt that Starmer and Rayner will lead their party into the next election. If Durham Police had fined any of them they should have stood down. Labor would immediately be reduced to the same kind of internal turmoil and infighting that now grips the Tories. Now this option is completely disabled. All the talk of Andy Burnham, Lisa Nandy, Rachel Reeves, Wes Streeting and the rest can be put back in the box, maybe for two years, maybe even longer.
Starmer and Rayner were vindicated in their belief that no Covid lockdown rules were broken when they drank curry and beer in Durham during the 2021 local election campaign. Why did Durham Police take so long to come out with her verdict, after she had already reviewed the case and found nothing in it, is mysterious. It seems a little suspicious that the announcement was made right after Johnson’s suspension ended. Just as happened in London with the findings of the Downing Street party, the police seem keen to withhold their announcements until they are at less risk of being accused of meddling in politics. This could have been resolved a long time ago.
The Durham decision is important in another sense. It ensures that the public’s justified displeasure at political rule-breaking during the pandemic remains focused where it should be: on Johnson and Downing Street, not on politics in general. If Starmer had been fined too, the public would have been entitled to wish the plague on their houses. Instead, the fact that he had no arguments to answer for allowed Starmer to go into his press conference on Friday afternoon and declare that for him honesty and integrity matter. This will clearly be one of the main dividing lines for Labor in the next election campaign. As Starmer himself said on Friday, this is no small project.
After this dramatic week, the Labor Party suddenly has the scent of power in its nostrils. The ruling party is in disarray. The Tories have lost a leader who was not so long ago their electoral asset. There is, of course, a respectable case for asking whether Johnson’s departure (assuming it happens) removes the main reason so many voters turned against the Tories in the last Wakefield, Tiverton and Honiton by-election. But Johnson has smashed the Tory brand as well as his own over the past three years, and the leadership contest is sure to reveal some deep divisions about what the Conservative Party now stands for in the post-Johnson era. It cannot simply be assumed that a new Tory leader will easily assume a dominant position and become popular and trusted.
There is a marked confidence in Starmer at the moment, which was evident in his rejection of any idea of a coalition with the Scottish Nationalists and his desire for a Labor majority over questions of a union with the Lib Dems. Many believe that Labor is deluding itself – something that has happened before under Neil Kinnock and Ed Miliband – and that the opposition must be out of the polls after the last few months. Or it could just be that Starmer’s cautious, gradual approach to regaining power after the Johnson and Corbyn years – while irritating to those who want him to set out the big plans he hinted at again on Friday – is proving quite cunning long game.
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Martin Kettle is a columnist for the Guardian
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