Labour Party Leadership: The Shadow of Tony Blair

The shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer has won the Labour leadership after beating Rebeca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy with 56% votes. On Sunday 5th April 2020, the new leader has appointed his shadow cabinet. Leadership

Expectedly, it will be the beginning of the new era for the Labour Party as he was promoted, due to the last worst defeat since 1935 in general elections in Labour’s history.

Yesterday, Saturday 4th after the declaration of the result, Starmer in his speech ensure that “he will engage constructively with the government” during the national emergency time that facing whole the country due to Covid-19 pandemic outbreak.

The UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has congratulated Keir Starmer as he was elected as the new leader for the Labour Party and he invited him to a briefing next week with the other opposition parties and to work together to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

However, despite the new leader has agreed to work together with conservative’s government regarding coronavirus pandemic as it will be in his priority and national duty in this critical situation, Starmer has ensured that “would not mean avoiding being critical when that was deserved”. Leadership

With the coronavirus pandemic concerns which is become a global issue, there are several challenges that Starmer needs to tackle, especially the issues related to the Labour party’s policies. In the last four elections, Labour has been failed and the recent December’s elections 2019 was the worst defeat under Jeremy Corbin’s leadership.

Consequently, the new leader will “inherit” the results of the policies of the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbin and the outcomes of his far-left influences on the party that has been expressed even into the party’s manifesto. For example, Starmer’s next priority after coronavirus battle will be tackling anti-Semitism rhetoric and in his victory speech, he promised to sort out this problem with the Jewish community as he apologizes to them and had described anti-Semitism as “stain on the party”.

Furthermore, the shadow cabinet expected to be a combination of the majority of the Labour party’s political fractions that can represent different views aiming to sustain the party’s balance.

Besides, the new leader’s other main priority is focusing on bringing the Labour party back to power in the upcoming election 2024 as a long-term strategic plan. For instance, he will need to pay more attention to the traditional areas where the Labour has been defeated in the last general election and had lost their seats such as Wales, Scotland, north England and West Midlands. Leadership

On the other hand, in upcoming days, the new leader's mission will not be eased to tackle all these issues and challenges despite he was supported by the main unions in the UN such as Unison. Added to that, Starmer was supported by the former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown and London mayor Sadiq Khan. In his mission to make Labour a party government, he will need at first to keep party’s unite, learning from its mistakes and then to rebuild the trust and connection with the public that has been lost in recent years.

That is why he had appointed his shadow cabinet with different figures that can express his coming party’s plan and even he had promised during his election campaign to sustain Jeremy Corbin inherit. Leadership

Making a real change it might be the Sir Keir Starmer mission as a newly elected leader of the Labour party which can eventually make a difference to people’s lives.

In addition, to set Labour back on the power and overwhelming all the main issues above it might require a new leadership team and charismatic figure at the level of former Labour prime minister Tony Blair and hopefully, Sir Keir Starmer will be the right new elected leader to begin this mission.

By: Zara Saleh levant