WHILE Britain's Conservative government battles multiple crises, Labour leader Keir Starmer is struggling to unite his warring party as he gears up for his biggest speech yet on Wednesday (29).
After the pandemic upended normal political campaigning, the speech is Starmer's first opportunity to address the Labour rank and file at their annual conference. It should also be a chance to land some poll-boosting blows on prime minister Boris Johnson.
The Conservative premier thrashed Labour's then far-left leader Jeremy Corbyn at the last general election in late 2019, promising to "get Brexit done". He has continued to ride high in the polls despite the coronavirus pandemic's devastating impact on Britain.
"The questions we face in Britain today are big ones," Starmer is expected to say in his speech, pointing to the pandemic, climate change and post-Brexit relations with Europe.
"These are big issues. But our politics is so small. So our politics needs to grow to meet the scale of the challenge," he will say.
Starmer also told Sky News on Tuesday that his speech was a "show moment" to persuade Britain that Labour has changed, after he rammed through internal reforms and his frontbench team outlined flagship new policies on climate change and taxation.
But while his team has taken heart from the election win of Labour's SPD sister party in Germany, infighting and a high-profile resignation have upset its conference show of unity in the southern town of Brighton.
It has distracted Labour from going on the offensive as Johnson - whose own party conference takes place in early October - deals with a Brexit- and Covid-fuelled energy crisis that has seen panic-buying empty fuel pumps across England.
Owen Jones, a left-wing activist and commentator, said the only words he wanted to hear in Starmer's keynote speech were "I resign".
'Complete abdication'
"Whatever my differences with (Tony Blair's) New Labour, in the '90s they hammered the Tories," Jones told AFP.
"These people are abysmally failing to pin anything on them during a national crisis.
"It's a complete abdication. They accused Corbyn of lacking competence - and this is their idea of competence?
"Keir Starmer is going to go down as the worst leader in the history of the Labour party: no charisma, no integrity."
Starmer, a lawyer who was formerly head of state prosecutions in England and Wales, replaced Corbyn in April 2020, just two weeks after Britain entered its first coronavirus lockdown.
He has won some plaudits in the media for lawyerly dissections of Johnson's blustery rhetoric at their weekly jousts in parliament.
But he has failed to connect with the public at large during successive lockdowns. His style is controlled, not charismatic, and he lags Johnson in most head-to-head poll ratings.
Labour sources said he would use the speech also to introduce himself to the party and electorate at large, as someone who overcame a troubled upbringing to reach the top of the UK legal establishment.
For supporters, his moderation and earnestness are what Britain and Labour need after Corbyn led the party to its worst electoral drubbing since the 1930s.
Liz Hinde, a publican and member of the executive committee of the Labour Business lobby group, approved of a new promise made at the conference to abolish local taxation on high-street firms and recoup more money from digital giants.
She contrasted that with a notorious jibe made by Johnson in 2018, in response to the alarm expressed by business leaders at Britain's unfolding divorce from the European Union.
"This government really has lived up to Boris Johnson's promise to 'fuck business'," Hinde told AFP.
(AFP)
