An undercurrent of harassment was in stark contrast to generous words from Sunak and Starmer.
Labour might have won a landslide, but that didn’t stop one of the party’s re-elected MPs branding it “the worst election I have ever stood in”.
So what: Masked by the electoral upheaval that has swept Keir Starmer to power was a contest marred by harassment and intimidation, often though not always focused on women:
- In Birmingham Yardley, Jess Phillips was almost drowned out by a group of men chanting for the second-place candidate as she gave her acceptance speech. When she was eventually able to speak, the outspoken MP recounted how her supporters had been filmed, screamed at and had their car tyres slashed.
- In neighbouring Birmingham Ladywood, Shabana Mahmood told the BBC how masked men had disrupted a community meeting, “terrifying” people in attendance. It was, she said, an “assault on democracy itself”.
- In Ilford North, Wes Streeting, the new health secretary, said he had been forced to change his routine and avoid public transport after receiving death threats.
All three MPs saved their seats by the skin of their teeth after being attacked for Labour’s position on Israel-Gaza. Mahmood, who has also joined Starmer’s Cabinet, claimed some people had sought to “deny” her Muslim faith.
The Galloway effect. Although George Galloway failed to retain his Rochdale seat, he had endorsed many pro-Gaza independents, as well as those campaigning for his Workers Party. Galloway is renowned for a divisive and pugilistic campaigning style that Lord Kinnock, the former Labour leader, described last night as “repulsive” and “repellant”.
When they go low. By contrast, the handover of power was marked with two speeches notable for their emphatic rejection of polarising rhetoric.
Rishi Sunak, the outgoing prime minister, described his successor as a “decent public-spirited man who I respect,” and urged his supporters to be “understanding… as he grapples with this most demanding of jobs in this increasingly unstable world”.
Starmer praised Sunak’s “dedication and hard work” and highlighted his place in the history books as the first British Asian prime minister.
Losers’ consent. In calmer times these speeches might have been unremarkable. In 2024 they were designed to
- telegraph a return of decorum to British politics after a period defined by the twin pantomimes of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss;
- remind Trump to the west and Putin to the east how uncontested democratic transitions should be handled;
- establish Starmer from the outset – his handlers hope – as a beacon for social democracy and the rule of law in a continent where the far right is on the rise; and
- show Britain’s own hard right, unashamed of its anti-immigrant dog-whistling, that civility is priceless – in the motto of Sunak’s alma mater, that manners makyth man.
Is anybody listening? Both leaders were speaking, too, to members of their own parties who, after months of high-stakes rivalry, are primed for further division. With four Reform MPs joining four pro-Palestine independents, British politics could be about to enter a new era of parliamentary rancour. Farage has insisted he will not “behave terribly”; the fact he’s been asked speaks volumes.
By Friday evening, a Reform rally had already been halted by hecklers calling Farage a racist. He responded by suggesting, for the second time this week, that his critic was an actor.
What’s more… A pro-Gaza protest is expected in central London tomorrow, although organisers claim they’re being thwarted by the Met Police. These used to be issues Starmer only had to complain about. Now he has to deal with them.
