Starmer’s Great Legacy is Proving That Standing for Nothing Is Not, In Fact, a Political Philosophy

‘If you stand for nothing, Burr, what’ll you fall for? Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda

Starmer has resigned. Not with a bang. Not even with much of a whimper. More like an HR email informing staff that “after a period of reflection” someone has decided to “pursue opportunities elsewhere.”

The decline really began when the ghosts of New Labour wandered back onto the stage. Peter Mandelson and the rest of the old Blairite priesthood returned to offer their usual wisdom: move to the right, reassure business, avoid having beliefs wherever possible. Their advice has always resembled telling someone trapped in quicksand that the answer is to relax.

The tragedy for Starmer is that this was always inevitable. New Labour’s great achievement was convincing itself that politics was about acquiring power rather than using it. Winning became the ideology. Government became management. Principles became optional extras. Starmer inherited that philosophy almost perfectly. Unfortunately, so did the country.

We’re not the Conservatives

In truth, things started unravelling the moment Labour won its enormous majority. Governments usually enjoy a honeymoon. This one seemed to go straight from the wedding reception to arguing over the mortgage.

Since entering Downing Street it has specialised in hesitation, reversals and announcing policies with all the confidence of someone trying to remember whether they’ve left the oven on.

The central message of Starmerism always seemed to be: we’re not the Conservatives. However, Starmer spent the next two years borrowing as many Conservative positions as possible in the hope that Conservative voters might notice the compliment.

Inheriting the office

Political triangulation eventually becomes political origami. You keep folding yourself until nobody can remember what shape you started as.

Of course, Starmer didn’t become Prime Minister because the nation suddenly fell hopelessly in love with him.

He inherited office because Boris Johnson treated integrity as an optional lifestyle choice and Liz Truss briefly attempted to recreate the economy using some maths from the back of a tea stained napkin. Starmer happened to be sitting in the other chair when the Conservatives set fire to the furniture.

What did Starmer believe in?

The difficulty was that nobody could ever quite explain what Starmer actually believed beyond not being Boris Johnson.

His politics always felt focus-grouped into near invisibility. Firm enough to reassure today’s median voter. Flexible enough to become something slightly different tomorrow. It was ideology as washable wallpaper.

Perhaps that’s why he often looked happiest on the international stage. Summits offered photographs, diplomacy and carefully choreographed consensus. Westminster, by contrast, demanded awkward decisions involving impossible trade-offs and moral judgement.

Standing up for Ukraine

To be fair, history will probably judge his support for Ukraine as one of the genuine successes of his premiership. Helping defend a democratic nation against Vladimir Putin’s invasion is considerably more substantial than most domestic announcements accompanied by a podium and a slogan.

Back home, however, the coalition steadily collapsed. Freebies. U-turns. Saying Israel has the right to commit war crimes. The “Island of Strangers” speech. Poor polling. By-election setbacks. Reform surging.

Confronting the far-right

Eventually the government resembled one of those flat-pack wardrobes where every repair involves removing another screw until the entire thing quietly falls onto the carpet.

His greatest weakness was confronting the far right. Centrism without convictions struggles to answer extremism because it treats politics as customer service.

When your central promise is competence rather than purpose, it’s remarkably difficult to explain why people should reject someone promising revolutionary change, even when that revolution is spectacularly awful. Nature abhors a vacuum. Politics apparently fills one with populists.

What comes next?

Andy Burnham probably begins as favourite. He may well prove more comfortable talking about inequality, public services and regional investment, but whoever inherits Number 10 faces exactly the same arithmetic. Without raising more revenue, every promise eventually collides with the Treasury like a shopping trolley hitting a brick wall.

It has been claimed that the real problem was communication. If only voters had understood the plan. If only the messaging had landed. If only there had been another podcast.

Perhaps. Or perhaps voters understood perfectly well that there wasn’t much of a story to tell. People rarely demand better slogans. They demand governments that visibly improve their lives.

Starmer’s legacy

Starmer’s real legacy may be demonstrating something British politics has spent two decades trying desperately not to learn. Standing for very little is not the same thing as standing in the sensible middle. Avoiding difficult arguments doesn’t prevent polarisation. It merely leaves stage empty and then lets loudest people fill the silence.

The hope inside Labour is that Andy Burnham can avoid repeating the mistake. The fear is that Westminster will simply produce Starmer 2.0: identical software, slightly different accent. Apparently a northern vowel sound now counts as constitutional renewal.