Starmer needs to do more on issues that matter – not being a Tory isn’t enough

We should congratulate the Tories for keeping one of their election promises. Last year the party’s then-deputy chair said “culture wars and trans debate” would be the “great ingredients” they would use to win the election. Now, just a week into the election campaign, the Tories are talking about national service for Generation Z and banning trans women from women’s toilets.

They clearly haven’t thought through either policy. We still don’t know what the punishment will be for refusing conscription. And forcing trans women to use male bathrooms – and trans men to use women’s bathrooms – would obviously cause chaos.

It’s not about having workable policies though – it’s about saying they’ll make life harder for people who ardent Conservative voters disagree with. But if the polls are right, that’s not going to work and in the end, we will see the public reject the party that’s attacking vulnerable groups. So if that brand of politics is dying, where does that leave the Labour Party?

Younger voters, who have traditionally backed Labour, don’t see these as “culture wars”. It’s not about statues, flags, poppies or singing “Rule, Britannia!”; it’s about real people’s lives being ruined.

It’s about the fact that discrimination against marginalised groups makes it harder for those people to escape poverty and increases their risk of daily abuse and violence. Unlike previous generations, in millennial and Gen Z circles equality is not up for debate. You either stand up for people who are suffering oppression, or you can get out. That’s why you’ve heard conservative voices across the West complain about “cancel culture”.

The Labour Party has stayed relatively quiet on these issues because they’ve been trying to ride two horses at once: appealing to disillusioned Conservative voters while simultaneously holding onto their progressive base. Think about the biggest issues of the last five years in British politics: Black Lives Matter, Palestine, Brexit, immigration, trans rights… Can you remember one speech from Keir Starmer that really set the Labour Party’s values apart from the Conservatives?

I’m not saying Starmer and co have copied the Conservatives. While the Tories supported booing those who took the knee in support of Black people’s equality, calling it “gesture politics”, Starmer and Angela Rayner took the knee themselves.

But where were the policy announcements that would actually make a difference to Black people’s lives? Why did they not say they would make anonymous job applications mandatory, so that a Black name would no longer make it 80 per cent harder to get an interview invitation? Why did they not announce plans to broaden history education to include the contributions of people who weren’t white men?

On Gaza, both Labour and the Tories gave Israel their full support in the days after the Hamas attack, before more recently moving to calling for a ceasefire (in muted terms) at the same time.

On Brexit, both Starmer and the Tories have acknowledged that Brexit is damaging our economy, but refuse to undo it, despite the public demand for rejoining the EU, with Starmer chanting “make Brexit work”.

On immigration, Starmer has vowed to cut the number of people arriving in the UK, a central promise of every Tory government of the last two decades.

The irony is that for all the talk of “identity politics”, the real identity crisis in our politics is the parties themselves. Are the Conservatives the party of business and sensible finances, or are they the party that said “f*** business” as they drove the economy off a Brexit cliff?

Will a Labour government actually be the party of working people and equality, or will they keep running scared?

Young voters are becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of political leadership we’ve had on the biggest issues of our lives. When Brexit was dominating British politics, young people opposed it, but neither of the two main parties offered them an alternative. While young people were protesting against the atrocities committed in Gaza, Starmer sided with Israel.

Jeremy Corbyn and Starmer supporters will say that in a two-party system, they have to be like this in order to get the Tories out. But in a few weeks that excuse will disappear.

Young people want a political leader they can believe in and someone who shares their concerns and values. Starmer has a way to go to convince them that he is their champion.