Keir Starmer stunned sceptics and rebuilt Labour. Now he must do the same for Britain

Not one senior party figure originally thought he had a prayer of leading them back into government in a single parliament, but now he bestrides a transformed political landscape

July 7, 2024, The Guardian

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David Lammy likes to tell a story about sitting at his kitchen table with Sir Keir Starmer shortly after Labour’s cataclysmic defeat at the 2019 election. Having ascertained that the other man intended to run for leader, Mr Lammy cautioned him that hauling Labour out of the abyss and back into contention for power would be “a 10-year project”. “No,” came the sharp response from Sir Keir. “I’m going to do it in five.”

Was he truly convinced that he had it in him to pull off what everyone else regarded as mission impossible? Or did he have to tell himself this because he knew he’d probably only get one crack at Number 10? As it turns out, he’s taken his party from its most abject defeat since 1935 to a landslide victory, and pulled off that remarkable feat in a bit under five years, to become the 58th prime minister in our history and only the fourth Labour one to secure a parliamentary majority.

The outcome of this election may have been foretold, but that makes it no less momentous. All the advance tremors did not soften the impact of the earthquake as the Labour gains piled up over the small hours of Friday morning. Were you still up to see Liz Truss go down? How close did you come to rupturing a vital organ when you cheered to see Jacob Rees-Mogg dispatched? Fourteen years of Conservative dominance demolished and just 121 Tory MPs, the lowest tally in their party’s long history, left to squabble with one another in the smouldering rubble. Labour has not just returned to power after a long absence. It is back in the governing business with a stonking majority of 174.

This is a dazzling achievement by Sir Keir, the more so for being such a vindication of a strategy that very few people outside a tight circle of friends and allies ever completely trusted. When he made his first, stilted address in the role of leader, one delivered from his living room because the country was in the grip of a Covid lockdown, I had many heartfelt conversations with senior Labour figures. None thought, not one, that Sir Keir had a prayer of leading them back into government in a single parliament. The doubters included virtually everyone who now sits around the cabinet table. Mr Lammy is unusual in being ready to admit this publicly.

It is true that Sir Keir has had a large number of assists from the Tories, but he wouldn’t have won this scale of majority without the drive to turn his party into an electable alternative to Conservative rule. This makes it a highly personal triumph for the will to win of a leader who has often been underestimated and derided as timid and uninspirational. “Starmer is no Tony Blair,” sneered those seeking to make an unflattering contrast with the last man to take Labour out of opposition and into government. Sir Keir’s riposte has been to secure a majority that comes very close to matching New Labour’s first landslide. Peter Mandelson, one of the architects of the win in 1997, reckons the Starmer victory to be the more astounding achievement because Labour has conquered an electoral Everest from such a depressed starting base. There are many fascinating subplots to this election, but this is the big picture story to focus on today.

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