Keir Starmer’s reluctance to use the S-word is curious

The Labour leader refused to call himself a socialist in an interview last week, writes John Rentoul

‘Socialism? Never heard of it’ (Getty)

Keir Starmer refused to say that he’s a socialist in an interview with Francis Elliott on Thursday. “What does that mean?” he asked instead. In a way, his inability to do retail politics is almost charming. Having been an MP for a mere six years, he has not yet fully trained himself in the basic arts.

The obvious answer is: “Yes of course.” He has been a member of the Labour Party all his life. In his youth, he was a member of something called the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency, which produced a magazine called Socialist Alternatives. As a lawyer, he campaigned (unsuccessfully) to change the name of the Haldane Society to the National Society of Socialist Lawyers. As an MP, he served in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet.

What a politician would do is say, “Yes of course,” and then go on to define socialism in such wishy-washy terms, involving applehood and people being nice to each other, that nobody could disagree with it. Starmer went on to do precisely that. Having dodged the initial question, he added: “The Labour Party is a party that believes that we get the best from each other when we come together, collectively, and ensure that we give people both opportunity and support as they are needed.”

But he attracted more attention by his refusal to answer the original question than by his attempt to explain himself. By deflecting the question, Starmer implied that there was something embarrassing about being a socialist. He looked as if he lacked the confidence to stand up for what he has always believed.

This is all the more curious because Tony Blair used to say he was a socialist, despite being attacked by many in the party in the name of socialism. Indeed, the first sentence of clause IV of the Labour Party constitution, which Blair drafted, declares: “The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party.”

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It then goes on with the platitudes “by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone” and “a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few”. But it starts with the S-word, albeit qualified with the word “democratic”, which makes sense for a party in a parliamentary democracy that wants to distinguish its ideology from that of revolutionary socialism.

It makes no sense for Starmer to disown his past. He should call himself a socialist and then define what it means.

Yours,

John Rentoul

Chief political commentator