Death by a thousand consultations

Starmer has deferred at every turn to a broken state

Today on Arguably, Martha writes on how prevarication became the defining feature of Keir Starmer’s premiership and why the case for state reform is stronger than ever.

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After Labour’s catastrophic local election results in May, pundits and citizens alike wondered what Keir Starmer would say to try and revive his dying premiership. One pledge was to put the UK at the “heart of Europe” – but without altering the Brexit red lines that make that an impossibility. Another was to renationalise British Steel “subject to a public interest test”. That last phrase could be Starmer’s political epitaph.

Reliance on consultation, or some barometer of the national interest beyond his own judgement, is how Starmer governs. Time and again, he has outsourced essentially political decisions to others. Louise Casey was appointed to lead a commission into social care that will conclude in 2028 – deferring a solution to a decades-long crisis. It was Casey, too, who was chosen to rule on whether a national inquiry into grooming gangs should be held, giving us the uniquely Starmerite construct of an inquiry into an inquiry.