Labour’s change of management will not be comfortable for the party

Sir Keir Starmer, the present leader of the opposition, told the prime minister, the House of Commons and indeed the whole country that the Labour Party is “under new management” – his.

Even though Sir Keir was a member of Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, an inconvenient detail, and thus sitting on the board of directors of the old regime, his point still stands. Making actions match words, he and the Labour Party have publicly apologised to the former Labour activists who told the BBC’s Panorama programme about the depth of the party’s antisemitism issue.

There were damages and a corresponding apology to the reporter, John Wade, who stands vindicated. It follows the sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey and, presumably, prefigures further radical moves when the Equalities and Human Rights Commission Report into Labour and antisemitism is published shortly. Not so long ago it was at least possible that Mr Corbyn, John McDonnell and Seumas Milne would be running the country.

Of course, if there is one thing that Mr Corbyn’s friends and foes can agree on it is that he has a pronounced stubborn streak, and it is already on display. Echoing his famous remark that Labour had “won the argument” when it went down to a historic defeat last December, Mr Corbyn has put out an unrepentant statement. Mr Corbyn argues that when Labour sued its ex-staff whistleblowers it was advised that it had a “strong legal defence”, and plainly thinks that is still the case. He therefore finds Sir Keir’s move “disappointing”, a rare understatement.

This is more than a change in management for Labour; it is a revolution. Most of the speculation that swirls around social media comes to nought, but there was much activity yesterday surrounding the potential for Mr Corbyn to lose the party whip. Even Tony Blair flinched from expelling the turbulent Mr Corbyn during the high noon of New Labour.

The kickback from Mr Corbyn may end up suiting Sir Keir very well, as he seeks to signal the changes he is now making. The new Labour leader will never (unless he wins the next election) be in as strong a position again. He has a fresh mandate from the membership, has put in a credible shift against Boris Johnson, reduced the Tories’ poll lead and shown he has a taste for strong leadership, which the voters tend to like. The parliamentary party is mostly solid behind him, including his deputy, Angela Rayner, prominently backing him up. The next general election is years away, and the public isn’t greatly moved by the recriminations within the Labour Party, and, to the extent they are, probably favour Sir Keir (who is more popular than his party is).

This is the moment of maximum leverage for Sir Keir and he seems happy to use it.

He can probably do nothing else, if he wants to lead Labour back to power. Still, he is inviting trouble. Mr Corbyn and his old allies such as Len McCluskey, the leader of Unite and Labour’s biggest donor, are vocally unhappy, and they do still represent a sizeable portion of the party’s grassroots, though apparently very much a minority these days. Some old Corbynites, Momentum and otherwise, are in the process of quitting. If they and figures such as Mr Corbyn and Ms Long-Bailey seek to regroup as a new party, that will be a debilitating distraction.

Labour under Sir Keir Starmer now faces something like the battles it went through in the 1980s under Neil Kinnock. In that decade, Mr Kinnock’s brave efforts only served to confirm why his party was not going to be trusted by the voters with governing the nation, or at least not for another decade.

There were similar struggles for Labour’s soul and electability in the 1930s and 1950s; there is a cycle to these movements. Now, as then, there may be no alternative to the struggle to deliver Labour into the common ground of politics, and to challenge for power, but it won’t be comfortable or fraternal for the party’s management team, past or present.