Darkened room, Sir Keir?

The prime minister's holiday plans aren't known yet. But one senior sympathetic Labour MP tells me: “I wouldn't blame Keir if he wanted to find a darkened room miles from any cameras or microphones or newspaper headlines and try to think what the hell he can do. But that isn't an option this summer of all summers.”

This summer of all summers indeed. If Sir Keir Starmer, just over a year after a landslide election victory, had harboured any lingering hopes of the parliamentary summer recess dialling down the political temperature and the media opting for the old 'silly season' of lightweight frivolity over heavyweight politics, they lie in headline-littered tatters.

At a Downing Street reception for political hacks just before parliament broke up, the prime minister made a point of reiterating his mantra that “Nigel Farage is the real leader of the opposition” rather the Tories under Kemi Badenoch. He could have thrown in the yet-to-be named new party headed by Jeremy Corbyn and his youthful Labour MP rebel Zarah Sultana; already more people have expressed interest in joining it than Reform's entire membership.

With its potential for attracting pro-Palestinian Muslim voters, it could pose an election threat to the seats of such senior Labour figures as Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood and even Starmer himself. Cold comfort came with a Times headline (July 28) 'The young prefer Corbyn to Starmer' based on a YouGov poll showing Labour's former leader with a hefty lead over his successor among the 18-24 age group, with the paper not unreasonably pondering where that leaves Labour's controversial bid to set the news agenda by reinforcing its intent to lower the voting age to 16 by the next general election.

With more than a third of Labour MPs publicly demanding the prime minister should echo France's President Macron and recognise Palestine and with deputy PM Angela Rayner leaning heavily on him privately, Starmer did precisely that. Only to run into a backlash from the Jewish community he has worked so hard to win back after the Corbyn years. They branded his plan to do so at the UN next month as a betrayal of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, while to add to the PM's headache, 40 of Britain's top lawyers, including some prominent Labour lawyer peers, wrote to warn him (*copy to the Times) his recognition plan would breach international law. Political foes were quick to requote Starmer's long history of championing the primacy of upholding international law.

From surviving Trump to the Palestine crossfire

Having skilfully survived the bizarre and tricky test of being entertained in his own country by President Trump in Scotland, Starmer returned to find himself caught in the Palestine / Gaza political crossfire.

Even a wilier leader than Sir Keir might have felt somewhat bruised and questioned how Britain's newspapers, both right and left, had been carrying harrowing front page images of starving mothers and skeletal children in the war ravaged Gaza strip for days and demanding he and the world take action but who were now also effectively labelling him Hamas's useful idiot. The bruising made all the more acute by the fact that he had managed during that rambling Scotland press conference to get Trump — the only man who can actually force an end to Gaza's suffering — to concede starvation was real and to disown (at least temporarily) Netanyahu's cynical 'fake' news protestations.

Take, for example, the Daily Mail's splash headline (July 30), 'STARMER'S 'REWARD FOR HAMAS'. Inside, under the headline, 'Virtue signalling of the most toxic kind that'll do untold harm', an op-ed from historian Mark Almond, director of Oxford's Crisis Research Institute, began: “Keir Starmer's proposal to recognise a 'Palestinian state' will do no good to the beleaguered residents of Gaza. It is an act of naked political self-interest. The prime minister risks doing untold harm to many people, including the besieged and starving civilian population of the Strip, as well as the UK's international standing, especially with America.

“His announcement that his government will acknowledge Palestinian statehood in September unless Israel 'takes substantial steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza is virtue signalling of the most toxic kind. For one thing, Starmer is demanding a ceasefire without insisting this must depend on the release of the remaining Israeli hostages, alive or dead. Critics will say this amounts to declaring victory for the terrorists of Hamas — and rewarding then for the atrocities of October 7, 2023, the worst slaughter of Jewish people since World War II.”

Almond's article goes on to echo the point made by those eminent legal critics, namely that Britain has never, according to international law, “recognised the existence of another country that has no defined lands or borders”.

While Boris Johnson, still clinging to the hope of becoming the Tory party's antidote to the Farage surge, leapt in with his August 2nd Mail Saturday Essay: “Starmer's craven and pathetic gesture on recognising Palestine has nothing to do with the horrific scenes in Gaza, nor a future for those who live there. This is about the Muslim vote here and managing his own MPs. That's the really shameful thing.”

Trickier for the prime minister than Johnson's opportunistic intervention was the hostile media reaction of British families caught up in the hostage situation, including Emily Damari, the young British-Israeli woman who was held captive by Hamas before being freed in a release deal and publicly greeted on her return by Starmer in a much-publicised Westminster meeting. Now Ms Damari angrily accuses him of being “on the wrong side of history” and favouring a plan she condemned as “leaving the remaining hostages rotting in dungeons”.

Calculated risk or another judgement failure?

For some of us, the failure to explicitly link backing Palestine statehood recognition to a pre-condition of hostage release does pose a crucial question. Was it a calculated gamble knowing it would trigger a backlash or was it another example of a government whose political instincts / judgements and communications skills have been found wanting too often?

That said, recognition of a Palestine state will be overwhelmingly passed by the UN General Assembly next month but Britain and France's support will mean nothing in reality as fellow Security Council member America will almost certainly use its veto power to reduce it to symbolism.

Of course, symbolism does matter. Personal declaration of interest here (as a non-Jew with many Jewish friends and relatives via marriages and a journalist who has covered Middle East conflicts in the past), I am a staunch supporter of Israel but not the Netanyahu regime while also long advocating the elusive two-state solution. If Hamas's barbaric, obscene outrage of October 7 justified Israel's initial response, the scale of civilian carnage since must qualify as a blatant breach of international humanitarian law and itself involve war crimes. Similarly, Netanyahu and the right-wing cabinet fanatics propping up his leadership, continue to defy international law with the illegal settlement explosion across the West Bank.

But for a bruised, battered, beleaguered and bewildered Keir Starmer, domestic explosions threaten to make the summer of 2025 a very dangerous battleground too. And that's before we reach the ticking timebomb that is Rachel Reeves' Autumn Budget, preceded by what looks certain to be an awkward, highly-charged party conference season both for the prime minister and the Tories' Badenoch. There's also the not inconsiderable problem of nurses threatening to follow resident doctors down the strike route. Plus a collision course with London's Labour Mayor, Sadiq Khan, over Heathrow airport expansion and how the government can reconcile its airport expansion strategy with its climate change commitments.

Migration timebomb

Against the omnipresent backdrop of the cost of living crisis, the politically toxic migration issue with those ugly protest scenes outside migrant hotels dominating headlines, news bulletin footage, the wild west of cyberspace et al, could well escalate into a summer major law and order crisis for a prime minister and his government whose poll ratings have nosedived at unprecedented warp speed.

As more mass protests loomed, former Tory Attorney General Dominic Grieve KC told Wednesday's Guardian that Reform and Tory politicians are guilty of “immigration hysteria” that could sabotage the justice system by publicly referring to named migrants awaiting court appearances as “criminals” before their cases even go to trial.

Already, Nigel Farage has announced he'll be scrapping most of his usual, substantial summer holiday break to 'fight on the beaches', aka take to the channel to film and report on the steady stream of flimsy, dangerously overcrowded craft crossing it. It's also set to be Badenoch's main weapon of choice as she struggles to revive the Conservative party's dire fortunes and salvage her own sinking personal poll ratings.

No surprise, then, that Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has been hitting the studio rounds rolling out a series of tough-sounding plans for tackling the immigration crisis in the hope of turning the anti-government tide between now and the next general election. One of her better proposals (plucked from the Tony Blair Institute playbook) featured all over the front page of the Labour-loyal Observer (August 3) with the headline, 'Britain's real immigration crisis... and the solution' trailing Rachel Sylvester's look at 'Labour's push for digital ID for all'. But talking tough and acting tough are very different beasts in the court of public opinion right now.

Cooper's 'One In, One Out' trial deal with France launched on Wednesday in a blaze of publicity — positive and negative. It's a policy on which the government is pinning high hopes this summer despite noisy criticism from Farage and Badenoch. The home secretary took to a BBC TV interview to accuse Farage of “just shouting” without having a realistic, coherent strategy for tackling the migration crisis.

Coincidentally, a new YouGov poll in The Times showed 45% of Britons would support an immigration “moratorium and mass deportation” approach. Significantly, 86% of Reform voters favoured it compared to only 27% of Labour and LibDem ones.

But the government does appear to be edging toward agreement on one plank of hyperactive Farage's overblown “Lawless Britain” summer campaign blitz. That's automatically identifying the nationality of suspects arrested for serious crimes.

Constant footage of small boats arriving in record numbers with print headlines to match as public protests proliferate and violent clashes with police increase offers no summer respite for a government on the ropes. A particularly Trumpian twist to Reform's summer attack strategy is to target both the current government and its Tory predecessor over the number of illegal migrants and asylum seekers being housed in jails for crimes committed since arriving in the UK.

Plans for arch-agitator Tommy Robinson to lead some migrant hotel protests were scuppered when he flew the country after a violent incident last week at London's St Pancras station. On his return on Monday, Robinson — real name Stephen Yaxley Lennon — was arrested at Luton Airport accused of causing grievous bodily harm.

'Britain is facing societal collapse, warns Farage,' was the July 22nd Daily Mail splash headline giving pride of place to the Reform leader's much-hyped law and order summer campaign pitch. Inside the same edition, a double page spread written by Dan Hodges, scion of the revered late Labour minister and Oscar winning actress, Glenda Jackson, was provocatively headlined, 'People are scared to let their kids out' with Hodges declaring, “Nigel Farage is currently the only senior politician who is seen to be actually speaking for Britain — and doing so in a voice voters recognise.”

Not quite, perhaps. Angela Rayner, increasingly viewed as prime minister-in-waiting by many left of centre Labour MPs disinclined to defect to any new party, is known to have echoed a fair amount of Farage's 'societal collapse' schtick in an uncompromising address to cabinet colleagues.

The trouble for Labour is that when it comes to political storytelling, no matter how fanciful, Farage is the smart narrator. Which makes Keir Starmer's most intriguing move this summer arguably the appointment of former Sun editor and latterly News UK COO David Dinsmore as the government's communications overlord with the civil service rank of permanent secretary and starting in November. Certainly the Labour government's communications fleet has too often been all at sea since that 'loveless' landslide. I don't know David Dinsmore well enough to predict whether it's an inspired choice or not and — inevitably — the Murdoch connection has sparked kneejerk hostility among some Labour backbenchers. But what I do know is that he'll need the authority and organisational flair and discipline displayed by my old Mirror colleague, Alastair Campbell, in the early days of the Blair government if Keir Starmer and his government are to secure that second term.

For its part, the Mail group is becoming an increasingly intriguing media case study. As this column has revealed before, senior figures have planned to stick with the Conservative party as long as the polls don't prove they are an electoral lost cause. But the last couple of weeks have shown clear evidence the Tories most powerful print backer is at least seriously flirting with the idea of eventually fully embracing Farage and Reform.

But while Farage was enjoying his coverage in the right-wing titles, my old ship The Mirror countered with a bold Tuesday front page headlined, 'FANNING THE FLAMES' and accusing him of being a “fake patriot” whipping up hate over migration to further his own political ambitions.

And, Farage wouldn't have enjoyed Thursday's Times with star columnists Hugo Rifkind and Tom Peck doubling up to debunk the “hellscape” image of the country Reform is pumping out all summer as part of its “Britain is Lawless” electoral sales pitch.

Back to the July 3rd edition of The Observer which also featured a stark warning from lead political commentator Andrew Rawnsley. Headlined 'Labour is facing a two-fronted battle: and, whisper it, even Sir Keir's seat could be at risk'. The prescient sub-heading, 'With a new left-wing party launching, the danger now is that disillusioned voters hand more to rivals from both flanks.'

The perils of mocking Corbyn and Sultana

The veteran pro-Labour analyst has already flagged up the threat posed by the Farage / Reform factor but now spotlights, “The threat to Labour from parties to its left is almost certain to be more potent at the next election. There will be left-wing disillusionment with the Starmer government to exploit, and hoping to do the exploiting will be a new grouping around Jeremy Corbyn, both former Labour MPs estranged from the party. Their outfit has been launched in a messy fashion and does not yet have an agreed name. Jesbollah? The People's Front of Islington? Votey McVote Face?”

But name jokes aside, Rawnsley rebukes failure to take the Corbyn / Sultana alliance seriously, writing, “The response from Labour loyalists has so far been dismissive, scoffing that Britons were twice offered a Corbyn-led party and twice rejected it. This is true, and at the same time it misses the point about the new outfit.

“It won't be making the compromises with the broad electorate necessary for a party that is aiming to form a government. Even Mr Corbyn has probably realised by now that he is never going to be prime minister. The new party will be targeting the substantial wedge of left-wing voters who feel let down by Labour. Since Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana launched their new venture, they claim that more than half a million people have expressed an interest. A free sign-up is not the same as becoming a fully paid up, fully active member, but it is highly plausible that there is some appetite for their menu.

“Polling suggests that potential support for a new left party amounts to about 10% of the electorate. While nothing like enough to win a parliamentary majority, that is more than enough to wreak havoc on Labour prospects. In some constituencies an 'unapologetically socialist party' could directly take seats off Sir Keir's party. In other places, the threat is that the left vote is split in a way that allows a right-wing candidate to come through the middle to win. Lord Kinnock, the former Labour leader, mocks the Corbyn-Sultana outfit as the 'Farage Assistance Group.”

Citing strong Labour figures and impressive media performers like Jonathan Ashworth and Thangam Debbonaire who were both earmarked for senior Cabinet roles until they lost their seats in Labour's landslide victory due to a Gaza backlash among Muslim voters, Rawnsley concludes his column with a tough message for Labour strategists: “The name-pending party has yet to formally elect a leader, draw up a constitution or stage a conference. It may ultimately fall apart or fizzle into irrelevance by succumbing to the self-indulgence, factionalism and acrimony that has been the perennial hallmark of the British left. Then again, you can argue the way things are going means the conditions have rarely been more propitious for this kind of party. Sir Keir's party will need to find an effective way of dealing with it. Dismissive sneering doesn't amount to a strategy.”

Separately, the Guardian has reported that Labour's biggest but alienated union backer Unite has been in tentative talks about offering the Corbyn / Sultana 'startup' financial support.

Interestingly, Reform strategists aren't as gleeful as you might expect over Starmer's Corbyn / Sultana problem. Why? Because private research suggests some of those disillusioned Labour voters who defected their way at the last general election and even more so at this May's local elections could paradoxically be tempted by a new hard left party more than a hard right one thus imperilling Nigel Farage's current poll march toward No 10.

Savile and Farage... dirty trick or clever ploy?

In part, it could explain the Reform leader's furious reaction to one of the sillier episodes of this non-silly season. Technology Secretary Peter Kyle's bizarre (but news agenda hijacking) Sky interview with Wilfred Frost in which he claimed Farage's threat to scrap the Online Safety Act if he wins the next election “put him on the side of people like Jimmy Savile”. At first, watching live, I thought it was a foolish impromptu outburst by the normally measured Kyle. But, rewinding, it was clearly pre-planned and very deliberate. Kyle has since pointedly refused to apologise and stuck by his assertion.

Another double declaration of personal interest here. Although I am no Farage supporter — and indeed sometimes his left leaning protagonist on his GB News show — I didn't find Kyle's Savile line funny or effective. Not least because I'm the editor who was legally thwarted from exposing Savile in his lifetime back in 1994. Using that paedophile pervert's name to smear Farage ranks — in my book at least — as a political dirty trick too far. Even though, I'm reliably informed, it was a tactic pre-approved by No 10 and signals an upcoming strategy of personally targeting the Reform leader's character at every opportunity. Polling may soon show whether the Savile smear tactic successfully damaged Farage or proves to have been an own goal instead.

Farage and Reform's argument is that the Online Safety Act presents a 'dystopian state' threat to freedom of speech. Their position is undoubtedly OTT for political advantage but not without some merit that genuinely concerns lawyers, journalists and politicians from both right and left.

But freedom of speech and the right to protest also shape to pose yet another looming law and order headache for Keir Starmer next month.

How to handle the state visit of President Trump when demonstrations will be on a vastly larger scale than those for his so-called 'private' golfing trip to Scotland?

Newspapers and politicians from the right — Trump's 'buddy' Farage prominent among them — will be on the alert for what they perceive as “overly permissive” policing of protesters while from the left will be accusations of “repressive” policing if they perceive the president is being “shielded” from seeing and hearing the level of democratic hostility being directed at him.

This weekend will stress test both Farage's “Lawless Britain” selling pitch and the Starmer government's own approach to law and order policy. Up to 20 major demos are planned around the country, the majority focusing on migrant hotels. But the most dangerous could involve a planned mass protest in London against the government's contentious proscribing of the Palestine Action group as a terrorist organisation. It means that even peacefully attending the protest will be a criminal offence with Scotland Yard declaring its intent to arrest everyone who does.

By the time it's over, Keir Starmer might well mourn the passing of the silly season and even welcome the idea of time to lie down in that darkened room devoid of cameras and microphones to contemplate where the next election victory can possibly come from.