Keir Starmer must take his own advice and turn his party’s focus outwards

Sir Keir Starmer told his shadow cabinet a few days ago that he wanted to change the Labour Party rules because the current ones “focus us inwards to spend too much time talking to and about ourselves”. His proposals succeeded in turning the party inwards so that its members spent the days before their annual conference talking to and about themselves.

That might have been a price worth paying if the changes had been plainly necessary, and if the party had responded to a show of leadership. But the case for the proposed changes is marginal at best. Fixing the rules to make it harder for “another Jeremy Corbyn” to win the leadership betrays a lack of confidence in the ability of the social-democratic wing of the party to win the argument.

It also seems curious to be focused on what happens after Sir Keir has ceased to be leader rather than on what it would take to make him prime minister. That is surely the direction in which the energies of the Labour Conference should be directed. The nation faces a difficult period, with the government making many of the wrong choices, and the opposition ought to be hammering home a few simple arguments again and again.

Now is not the time to be cutting universal credit for millions of people, many of them in work and on low pay. Now is not the time for Brexit dogma to prevent British employers from recruiting from EU countries to try to overcome labour shortages – as the prime minister himself has belatedly acknowledged by allowing the issue of 5,000 short-term visas for lorry drivers.

And the government has left some gaps in its bold and broadly justified decision to raise taxes to pay for the exceptional costs of the NHS. Labour ought to be explicit in stating that taxes will have to rise, and that most workers will have to make a contribution, but that more of the burden should be borne by those who have thus far escaped Rishi Sunak’s tax-raising measures. The owners of more expensive and second properties have got away too lightly, and Labour should say so, coming forward with specific and costed proposals. Vague words about “the broadest shoulders” will not convince people that the party would be an effective custodian of the public finances.

Instead of making those arguments, the Labour Party has opened its annual conference – its showcase to the nation – with an internal debate, and a defeat for the leader, who failed to do the basic work of managing his own party.

One of Sir Keir’s allies told Andrew Grice, our political columnist: “Two steps forward, one step back. It doesn’t stop him advancing again.” No, it doesn’t, but it was a terrible wasted opportunity at a time when the country is crying out for an effective opposition.