“Will a Keir Starmer premiership just be Blairism 2.0?”

One of the few things Keir Starmer's critics and admirers agree upon is that he has taken the party in a markedly different direction to Jeremy Corbyn. The change has at times been reminiscent of an awkward, personal break-up: Starmer said in 2020 that he “[doesn’t] see the circumstances in which [Corbyn] will stand at the next election as a Labour MP”.

What’s more, Corbyn did work hard to marshal young people’s votes, and I think he almost did the preliminary work for Starmer. Young people have have experienced serious educational damage due to the Tories' mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic, and a huge proportion of us suffer from the Tories' actions socially, economically, and in terms of our mental health. I can’t see many young people choosing to vote for the government which has essentially ruined opportunities and an important part of their youth. The people Starmer has to work much harder to win over are voters that usually sway between the Tories and Labour, and need convincing that we are desperately in need of societal change. 

This is why Starmer’s current populist style is the right move. Starmer needs to learn from Blair in order to kick Sunak out of Downing Street. Our country is falling to pieces; there is major strike action across key public sectors such as education and healthcare, as well as in the rail and postal industries. At this moment the priority should not be radical lefist reforms, but simply getting a broken country back on track. Two of Starmer’s key pledges are notable here: 

1. Economic justice – “Increase income tax for the top 5% of earners, reverse the Tories’ cuts in corporation tax and clamp down on tax avoidance”.
2.  Strengthen workers’ rights and trade unions – “Oppose Tory attacks on the right to take industrial action and the weakening of workplace rights.”. This is particularly promising (if we can ever take a politician on their word) and is actually less capitalistic than Blair’s 1997 manifesto which stipulated that “[t]here will be no increase in the basic or top rates of income tax”.

So, I don’t think Starmer’s leadership will necessarily be Blairism 2.0, but will instead will be inspired by Blairism's populist, open-minded characteristics in order to appeal to a large cross-section of voters. My message to Starmer is simple: don’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out.