{"id":46556,"date":"2025-10-03T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.redpepper.org.uk\/?p=46556"},"modified":"2025-10-02T00:31:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T23:31:19","slug":"the-starmer-symptom-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.redpepper.org.uk\/culture-media\/books\/the-starmer-symptom-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Starmer Symptom – review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Title:<\/strong> The Starmer Symptom<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author:<\/strong> Mark Perryman (ed)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher:<\/strong> Pluto Press<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year:<\/strong> 2025<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Although two party politics is over in the UK, with voters flipping between more parties more frequently, our ballot box behaviour remains stubbornly binary. Voters choose between one loose cluster of parties which value immigration, lean towards Europe, take action to avoid climate crisis, and seek redistribution of wealth \u2013 consisting of Labour, the Greens, the Liberal Democrats and the nationalist parties -\u2013 and a second far more fractious camp of Europhobes who oppose large-scale immigration and net zero action, pressing for lower taxation and less economic regulation. When voters float it is usually within these blocs, not between them.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Floating rightwards?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A relatively small number of Labour votes have leaked to Reform, now ballooning with former Conservatives and people who have tended in the past not to vote. But Labour\u2019s stumblings and shortcomings in office are also reducing its weight in the more progressive bloc. A failure to improve public services and standards of living might deprive it of office after just one term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Starmer Symptom<\/em> is a bifocal survey of the challenges and choices which lay ahead: one eye is dismayed by the limited ambition of empty pockets and low growth Labourism, while the other searches for ways in which the party might win another term in 2029. Can what one eye sees coordinate with the other? Possibly not. The last few months have been a giddy, dispiriting experience. In an enthusiastically curated showcase of soft left thinking, more than a dozen opinions are offered on ways forward for Labour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On policy, these include Danny Dorling\u2019s call for wealth taxes, reduced income inequality, rent controls and action to end child poverty; James Meadway\u2019s suggestion of price controls to check inflation; and Andrew Simms holding fast to green transition investment. To raise levels of political participation and trust, Nicky Garland urges proportional representation along with national and local citizens\u2019 assemblies, while Hilary Wainwright argues the priority is organising popular power from below, pointing to a new wave of independent local assemblies<\/a> \u2013 from London to Tyneside \u2013 driven by and drawing people into community action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pluralist co-operation in an authoritarian era<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The emphasis throughout the collection on pluralist co-operation by progressive parties, significant policy change, extra-parliamentary mobilisations, coalition building and tactical voting is a very different direction of travel to the centralism and tribal discipline being demanded by the Labour leadership and sanctioned with suspensions and expulsions. It is a bold and timely bid for dialogue between an increasingly dissatisfied soft left -\u2013 Clive Lewis,<\/a> for example, who contributes the foreword \u2013 and Labour activists in battleground seats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of its critique is considered: \u2018The idea that social democrats can\u2026 manage neoliberalism more effectively and more humanely is untenable,\u2019 observes Neil Lawson. \u2018Starmer\u2019s government is setting itself up for failure, but a failure driven by its own poor choices,\u2019 argues Meadway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some is more damning: Keir Starmer \u2018deceived and tricked his way into leadership,\u2019 storms Jeremy Gilbert, and the result \u2013 his failure to challenge financiers, the managerial class, and landlords -\u2013 is merely non-politics. Gargi Bhattacharyya, who calls out Labour for race-baiting, is even more incensed: \u2018I curse them with the core of my being,\u2019 she concludes. One wonders if that will help the book\u2019s alliance-building ambitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hegemony now?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Many of the contributors draw on a 1980s turn to Gramsci, led by Stuart Hall<\/a> and the magazines New Socialist <\/em>and Marxism Today<\/em>, to make their case: broadly speaking, this requires grassroots \u2018organic intellectuals\u2019<\/a> to assemble a progressive bloc capable of shaping a new social order by developing an overarching \u2018hegemonic\u2019 project \u2013 previous examples include welfare statism, Thatcherism and neoliberalism \u2013 a persuasive big idea and set of actions that advance a national and popular appetite for change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last thirty years Perryman has edited half a dozen collections of essays \u2013 from The Blair Agenda<\/em> to Corbynism from Below<\/em><\/a> \u2013 which extend this approach into the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an enthusiastically curated showcase of soft left thinking, more than a dozen opinions are offered on ways forward for Labour<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his opening essay, Perryman points out that instead of the \u2018plural coalition-building politics\u2019 and community wealth creation which could strengthen local economies and recapture voters lost by the party in 2019, we have had a \u2018passive revolution\u2019 of top-down change (and not much of it) with a narrow focus on growth that remains, in many ways, neoliberal. His big-ups for Red Wedge and The World Transformed give an indication of how he thinks participatory politics might be rekindled and taken in new directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Navigating a left future<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Books are often overtaken by events. A newly elected leader has repositioned the Green Party as an eco-populist challenge to Labour from the left, while the launch of a new party of the left also postdates this volume. Hilary Wainwright makes a strong case for putting community action and local assemblies first<\/a>, pointing to the failures of the Socialist Labour Party, the Socialist Alliance and Respect in the not too distant past. And <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A significant shortcoming of the book is that it provides little insight into the thinking of parties adjacent to Labour, nor updates on their openness or otherwise to local coalition building<\/a>, which varies by constituency. Meanwhile, the populist right continues to rise in the polls<\/a> and prevail on the street. Hope Not Hate\u2019s Joe Mulhall thinks there are fault lines in Reform\u2019s support and it may be possible to separate the lower paid, economically vulnerable and least prejudiced followers from Farage. Let\u2019s hope so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can the voting bloc in which Labour presides, but in which its vote is being diluted, become more self conscious, co-operative and coherent? Can resource-poor local government and independent local assemblies identify common ground? Can antiracists woo flag wavers?  Can the soft left reach past Labourism? Can Liberal Democrats be won to workplace rights? Can champions of an affordable low-carbon lifestyle ally with advocates for GDP growth, higher defence spending and sovereign AI?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ll find out as we go. This book will help us on our way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As anger and disillusionment with Labour increase, a new collection from Mark Perryman asks some bold and urgent questions about dialogue on the left, writes Kevin Davey<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":46557,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[103,315,2529],"tags":[3087],"class_list":["post-46556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-labour-party","category-socialism","tag-kevin-davey"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Starmer Symptom - review - Red Pepper<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As anger with Labour grows, a new collection from Mark Perryman asks bold and urgent questions about dialogue on the left, writes Kevin Davey\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.redpepper.org.uk\/culture-media\/books\/the-starmer-symptom-review\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Starmer Symptom - 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