Assuming the seemingly inevitable happens and Sir Keir Starmer becomes Prime Minister later this year, there will likely be a little 1997-style honeymoon period. Back in 1997, Tony Blair reaped the benefits of a reasonably well-managed economy during the Major years, which allowed for considerable financial wiggle-room as well as basking in the afterglow of Tory success.
No such luck for Sir Keir with the Tories likely to bequeath an economy in the doldrums. With a vote base impatient for spending increases, the Labour leader and current Shadow Chancellor will have a difficult balancing act in the months ahead. Little wonder they have been fairly cautious in their spending commitments so far.
Meanwhile the Rwanda bill and defence spending pledges may have set further traps for Labour, although it seems likely the former will be scrapped.
There is however little appetite for immigration – legal or illegal – on the current scale, and even many core Labour supporters will want to see serious action to bring those numbers down. Much therefore depends on the extent to which the Labour leader is in hock to the party’s Hard Left.
Moreover, the one thing which could give Starmer some latitude is a stonking great majority, one which likely cements a Labour government for two terms. Still, the mood in the country is impatient for change, amid a sense the Tories have failed on their core pledges and neglected the most vulnerable. In attempting to please the many the Tories have succeeded in barely appeasing the few.
But again, Starmer will likely have the advantage of a huge majority and if, as the Tories claim, the economy is starting to turn a corner, then Labour may get some honeymoon period and room for spending increases after all.
Moreover, given the high watermark under the Conservatives for mass immigration, it seems exceedingly doubtful that Labour will dramatically cut the number. Public sentiment aside, does Labour really have the incentive to do so? The same goes for so-called “wokeism”. Will Labour really backtrack here, especially since the Conservatives have hardly been staunch defenders of traditional values?
So, far from setting traps for an incoming Labour administration, the Tories may actually have established the conditions for Labour to enjoy at least some honeymoon period, if only a brief one. Having set the cause of British conservatism back years, this would be the Tories’ ultimate legacy: a decade of Labour and the doubling-down on everything genuine conservatives out in the country dislike about modern Britain.
