IN AUGUST, I was writing, I will admit a little hopefully, about ridding ourselves of Keir Starmer, the sooner the better. No question about Starmer’s exit now. It’s just a matter of time, and it really might be soon. 

The Blairite right will be terrified that Andy Burnham wins a by-election somewhere and is then in a position to challenge for the leadership.

If they move now, as Mandelson would no doubt now advise them if only out of spite, they can put Wes Streeting in place, and it would be difficult to unseat him until he too has duly illustrated the consequences of being the monkey to corporate capital’s monkey grinder — austerity, inequality and political despair.

He will, for example, almost certainly accelerate private control of sections of the NHS in England. In the unlikely event that you have forgotten, Streeting said earlier this year:
“Where there is spare capacity in the independent sector, we will use it. We have agreed that we will work with them, and they will work with us to cut NHS waiting times.”

The Centre for Health and the Public Interest, which monitors NHS privatisation, described Streeting’s position as “utter nonsense.”

“Put simply, private hospitals are unable to deliver any operations without using NHS consultant surgeons or anaesthetists. Letting NHS consultants do the easy work in the private sector starves the NHS of both staff and income.”

But I am getting ahead of myself.

Labour Party members are currently deciding who they want as their new deputy leader after Angela Rayner’s embarrassing resignation over the matter of her tax “muddle” as I had heard it termed on Radio Scotland. 

This was a reference to 2001 when Henry McLeish, the Scottish Labour Party’s first minister, had to resign because he “forgot” to declare the income from subletting space in his offices in Fife while he was an MP. McLeish claimed that the issue was “a muddle, not a fiddle,” but he had to go, and so did Angela.

If you’re looking for a more obvious “fiddle” look no further than the process and practices deployed for choosing a new Labour Party deputy leader, or leader, for that matter. First, you change the rules to make sure that a high percentage of Labour MPs only can nominate who is to be on the list of possible candidates. 

Then you make sure, as best you can (nobody’s perfect), that only Blairite clones are on the shortlists for constituencies that eventually returned those MPs who currently decorate the Labour benches in the Commons. 

Finally, just to be sure, suspend half a dozen of those MPs who have escaped the cloning process from the parliamentary Labour group so they don’t have a vote. If Bell Ribeiro-Addy had made the 80 votes required after that political sieving, she would have been a candidate for canonisation, never mind the Labour Party deputy leadership, for that would surely have been miraculous.

Instead, we have a play-off between Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell, one a loyal supporter of Keir Starmer and the other a loyal supporter of Keir Starmer — at least until Powell’s sacking in the recent cabinet reshuffle. Here, however, we need to return to consider the leadership and a possible move to replace Starmer. 

Constituency Labour Parties and affiliates, including the trade unions, have until September 27 to nominate either Phillipson or Powell. They have to have voted by October 23. 

Given the political history of the candidates, the sensible thing for socialists in the Labour Party to do might well have been to buy the proverbial popcorn, head for home, put their feet up and enjoy two candidates trying to win their vote on the basis of their support for welfare cuts, energetic authoritarian crackdowns on protesters on Palestine, and immigrants, while, in sharp contrast managing only minimalist and glacial moves against Israel.

Enter, stage left, Andy Burnham — well centre-left anyway. Burnham has put his weight behind a new network in the Labour Party called Mainstream, which draws on a wide range of political perspectives from left to right, including MPs Clive Lewis, Dawn Butler, Alex Sobel, Clive Efford (a Tribune supporter) and the former Blairite minister John Denham.

It is, however, less its politics than its approach to political practice that matters. Speaking to the Guardian, Burnham said:
“Mainstream speaks to the change that’s needed, a more inclusive, less factional way of running the party. That is right anyway, but it’s really right for the times we’re in now. We’ve got to get beyond this culture where everything’s a threat. If people are speaking out, it can actually be an opportunity to make changes.”

Burnham is supporting Lucy Powell for deputy leader. Whether Powell supports Mainstream is not yet clear, as far as I can tell. But if she does support the approach that Burnham is advocating, then this contest would no longer be a matter of indifference to the Labour left. 

The left needs space to argue its case, space that has been denied by Starmer and his backroom bullies directed by McSweeney.

Should Powell promise to campaign for a democratic Labour Party, she would deserve the support of the left, even if other aspects of her political platform are not attractive.

And if Powell is elected, it would surely take us one step closer to Starmer’s demise. The deputy election might well be Starmer’s last stand.