As the West turns to ugly populism, can Labour rise above just not being Tories?

 

 

A century after Labour first made it into government at Westminster, a decisive new electoral victory is within grasp. 

 

 

When I think of Sir Keir Starmer's timid approach to a general election that cannot come too quickly, I think also of those brilliant but, sadly, soon-to-retire, folk-rock stars Oysterband. "We voted Labour," they wrote in album notes during the Blair years. "But we didn't inhale." 

 

 

In this Comment piece for The National, (for which Sir Keir is plain Mr Starmer), I describe how Britain, for now. Is sheltered from the grim populism sweeping the West (I include the alarming resilience of support for Trump in the US) ….. 

When so many European voters seem intent on drifting to the right or, without trace of embarrassment, even to the extreme right, it somehow feels odd to be contemplating a victory for the left in Britain.

If the polls are accurate, the UK’s Labour party is bucking a western trend. It is on course under Keir Starmer for an emphatic return to power when a general election is held later this year, after 14 years of office for the Conservatives – a period of despair and disappointment for many people. Some disgruntled Tories, perhaps with exaggerated gloom, even talk mournfully of the prospect of political extinction.

Portrait: Chris McAndrew