First Thatcherism, now ‘Starmerism’: How welfare reform could be the quiet revolution shaping Labour’s future

We all know that there used to be no such thing as “society” because there was an individualistic “thing” called Thatcherism: a body of values, attitudes and policies personified by Margaret Thatcher.

Should we, I wonder, now be speaking of “Starmerism”?

The answer to that, after a mere eight months of Labour government, is obviously “not yet” – it’s far too early. But what is emerging is a remarkable infusion of populism into Starmer’s very traditional and conventional brand of social democracy.

We see this almost every week now in the choices the Starmer administration has been making – on the two-child benefit rule, the tougher rhetoric and messaging on immigration, on shredding overseas aid, boosting defence spending, downgrading net zero by expanding airports, sacking half of NHS England's staff – and, now, some cuts to social security. Only the cuts to pensioners’ winter fuel allowance could be said to be something Nigel Farage wouldn’t back.

Yet the surprising thing is we still expect mass protests and Commons drama when the work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall presents her package of cuts, which, at about £5bn to £6bn, aren’t all that big in the great scheme of things.

We have not yet come to terms with the fact that this is the most right-wing (using the term loosely) parliamentary Labour Party in history and she won’t encounter that much trouble.

Labour MPs are, by historical Labour standards and recent Conservative standards, incredibly and impressively disciplined. The 2024 cohort don’t actually seem to have discovered that there’s a voting lobby for “No” in the Commons; or perhaps, more generously and realistically, they actually agree with Starmer and Rachel Reeves, broadly, and don’t think it worth capsizing the government and giving the Tories some easy talking points for a merely symbolic protest.

They really do think that the government has a “moral duty” to design the welfare system such that people are encouraged to work; and they readily accept that the country can’t afford the prospective increase in the social security bill.

So, while there may not be such a thing as “Starmerism”, there are many Starmerites now, a situation greatly enhanced by the last general election.

More than 250 of Labour’s 400 or so MPs were elected to the Commons under Sir Keir’s leadership (either in by-elections or the general election) and they owe their seats to him.

Unlike before 1997 or other previous landslides, Labour took special care to “vet” their candidates, even in the most improbable prospects for a Labour gain, and the results are apparent – a pragmatic bunch who are unusually well-attuned to public opinion and with little use for socialist principles (as we think they are).

Perhaps these mostly younger people are looking for their first ministerial role; but it is quite the quiet revolution from the days of Jeremy Corbyn – and a textbook example of how even the most beleaguered or deranged political parties can self-regenerate in a miraculously short time.

By way of illustrating the contrast to the Corbyn regime, 36 Labour MPs in the “Get Britain Working Group” recently wrote a letter to Kendall, actually urging her to get on with “fundamental change to our welfare system to support work”. That has never happened before.

The rebellions have been confined to “the usual suspects”; and centres of dissent outside the Commons are but part of the Labour movement. Trade unionists and figures such as the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, and ex-minister Ed Balls are a little less under the spell of this doctrine of Starmerism, which is best described as “extreme pragmatism”.

It is indeed remarkable how compliant the parliamentary Labour Party has been in such difficult circumstances and there seems every sign that the proposed changes – cuts – to working-age sickness and disability benefits being devised by Reeves and Kendall will go through.

According to the standard script of the life of a Labour government, what should have been happening since Reeves launched her first assaults on the welfare state shortly after the election was a series of parliamentary rebellions by disgruntled Labour backbenchers, resulting in knife-edge Commons votes, devastating speeches from ex-ministers who resigned on socialist principle, a bloody party conference and rumblings about a leadership challenge, plus a fair amount of jostling for the succession from an array of pretenders to the throne.

Every Labour government since Ramsay MacDonald’s a century ago has suffered from a crisis of confidence because of “tough choices”, often forced on a Labour cabinet in some economic crisis. It even happened under the supposed iron rule of Tony Blair, who had to face down an unexpectedly large revolt on cuts to child benefit in 1997 – 47 Labour MPs voted against the government, some 100 abstained. One minister and two private parliamentary secretaries resigned their posts, and a ministerial aide was sacked ahead of the crucial vote (which was still won comfortably).

The Callaghan government barely survived the IMF crisis in 1976, and laid the foundations for a generation of internal civil war. Nye Bevan quit the Attlee government over NHS charges in 1951 – and consequent divisions in the party kept it out of power for more than a decade. Europe, economic crises and trade union reform almost broke the Wilson governments. The voters rewarded such incompetence appropriately.

Starmer’s Labour Party seems very different. His task has, ironically, been made easier by the crisis in the public finances, which has forced so many of these unpalatable decisions on the party.

He has increasingly found himself following – rather than leading – public opinion on “culture war” issues, with the latest gossip suggesting some weakening of support for the European Convention on Human Rights (because of the way “family rights” interfere with deportations).

The rise of Reform UK has made Labour MPs sensitive to the kind of grievances Farage exploits. But fundamentally – and in contrast to every past Labour administration – there is simply no credible “socialist” alternative to what the government is doing. There is no leftist rival to Starmer – no modern-day successor to Bevan, Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone or, indeed, Corbyn, who rather proved the point at the 2019 election.

Starmer promised “change”, and nowhere is it more true than in his own party. It seems he meant it.