United Kingdom: Labor opens annual congress against a backdrop of divisions
Labor leader Keir Starmer faces a divided party.
Getty Images - Anthony Devlin
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
The English left struggles to exist.
This Saturday, September 25, is the start of the annual Labor Congress.
It takes place in Brighton in the south of England.
Party leader Keir Starmer will have to find his “leadership” in a divided party.
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With our correspondent in the United Kingdom,
Marie Boëda
Glorify the family, make work more profitable and secure, improve public service.
In the essay
The Road Ahead
published just before the convention, Keir Starmer sets out his vision in 14,000 words.
A vision that even his own political family describes as “
vague
”.
The challenge for this 59-year-old man, elected a year and a half ago, is to federate his party.
He inherited, in the midst of the first confinement, a very divided party, undecided on Brexit and its political positioning, mired in accusations of chronic anti-Semitism and overwhelmed by the debacle in the legislative elections of 2019 - his worst score in 85 years.
If at the beginning, the regular attacks against the erratic management of the pandemic by the government allowed the austere Keir Starmer to establish his credibility in the political arena, the trend quickly faltered in the face of a Boris Johnson halo. 'a successful vaccination campaign and a Brexit finally achieved.
► See also:
United Kingdom: Ken Loach says he was excluded from the Labor Party
So difficult for him to find his place.
He must differentiate himself from the conservative party in power and make Jérémy Corbyn forget.
This former Labor chief, far to the left, defended a clear line, but considered too radical.
Faced with the threat of a winter fuel crisis and the removal of the 23 euro increase in universal credit, Starmer the moderate seeks to offer the country a “
credible
”
alternative
, as he puts it.
He must present Wednesday, September 29 a speech supposed to clarify his line, little understood by voters.
"
People do not really know what to expect (...), what he defends or proposes
", underlines to AFP Steven Fielding, professor of political history at the University of Nottingham.
This year, the municipal elections were a failure for the Labor Party.
The next national elections will be held in 2024. Keir Starmer has three years left to reverse the trend, after ten years of electoral defeats.
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