“Don’t pay the bill” [“Ne payez pas vos factures”] It is the social movement that is rising in the United Kingdom. A priori, a boulevard for the left? Well no. As the new Liberal Prime Minister, Liz Truss, takes office in London, the intruder tonight is called Keir Starmer, Labor leader for two and a half years. I’m sure even his name means nothing to many of those who read us.
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However, when he took control of Labor in April 2020, he was the man who had to bring the left together and give it color. Both a great human rights lawyer – attorney general and football fan. A bit aristocratic but still popular. Knighted by the Queen while coming from a modest family: a worker father and a nurse mother. His first name, Keir, comes from the founder of the Labor Party, James Keir Hardie.
Sir Keir Stamer was the Labor Party’s ‘Mr Brexit’. Came to politics quite late – first elected in 2016, aged 54. It was he, the lawyer, who fought with the Conservative government when it came to organizing the exit from the European Union. Who also battled with Jérémy Corbyn, his boss, to obtain a second referendum. And after the collapse of the legislative elections when Jérémy Corbyn – much more on the left than him – decided to step down, his big project was to go and reconquer the old bastions abandoned by the Labor Party, without forgetting his own constituency of Saint Pancras , in central London.
In his campaign clip, he recalled that he was opposed to the war in Iraq, that in 1990, he had defended, as a lawyer, the demonstrators arrested by the police of Margaret Thatcher. Everything, dressed to the nines, never a wick sticking out. “I’ve spent my life fighting for justicesays Sir Keir. Standing up for those who have no power and against those who have it. I believe that another future remains possible. Where power can bring so many opportunities for all our communities. Another future for our party too… we can put our divisions aside. And unite on a radical program. “
The trouble is that if you drive out the natural, it comes back at a gallop. There’s a parallel going around a lot: you remember Bridget Jones’ diary, with Colin Firth playing the role of Marc Darcy, the ideal son-in-law, all in self-control, not funny. In all the portraits of Keir Starmer, it is written that he would have inspired the character of Marc Darcy. Which pretty much makes no sense because the novel was published in 1996 and the character was even created a few years earlier in a newspaper. But that says a lot about this image that sticks to his skin.
For a moment observers thought that his wife was going to increase his sympathy capital. At the time of confinement, we saw her applaud the health personnel on their balcony, not wearing makeup. But both refuse to expose their private lives. In short, this somewhat dull, uncharismatic side, not enough to fit in, especially during this last summer of social discontent, penalizes him. Even if it should be underlined, the labor party has picked up the hair of the beast since he took over. “He should have been much more visibleexplains Rainbow Murray, professor of political science at Queen Mary University of London. He’s someone who doesn’t make enough attacks. He’s not aggressive enough. If we look at the polls, we see that he still has a 12-point lead. He changed the party leadership. It’s true that Boris Johnson helped him a lot because people are not only attracted to the Labor Party but they are scared of the Conservative Party.”
“If we had an election tomorrow, I think Labor would win. Already that’s something you couldn’t say five years ago.”
Rainbow Murray, Professor of Political Scienceat franceinfo
Keir Starmer has two years left before the next legislative elections. He will not turn into a showman like a Tony Blair, but he still has to turn into the Prime Minister of this Labor Party now at the top of the polls, unless of course Liz Truss works miracles.