Schisms and sleaze plague Keir Starmer’s first Labour conference, risking long-term damage

Britain’s deputy prime minister Angela Rayner caught the eye dressed in stark black and white as she addressed the Labour conference in Liverpool on Sunday. But the party’s leadership was floundering amid shades of grey. An ethics farrago over gifts from rich donors threatened to overshadow its first conference as the governing party since sweeping side the Tories in July’s landslide election win.
It wasn’t meant to be like this. Prime minister Keir Starmer led Labour to power on a promise to “end the chaos” of the past 14 years of Tory rule. His task was made easier by the chaos and infighting that had gripped Downing Street under a slew of his predecessors from the Conservative Party.
But what goes around, comes around. Just 12 weeks after inflicting one of the biggest ever defeats on the Tories, it is now, already, the turn of Starmer’s Labour to grapple with internal division, fend off accusations of sleaze and deal with plummeting approval ratings.
[ Keir Starmer prepares for his first Labour conference as prime minister as infighting breaks out among his teamOpens in new window ]
The focus in recent weeks was on Starmer as evidence emerged of schisms among his top team. His chief of staff, Sue Gray, has been the subject of reams of negative press briefings from other senior Labour staffers and advisers around Downing Street, resentful of how she has wielded her power.
Starmer has also been badly damaged by a series of negative stories about his decision to accept expensive gifts such as clothing and designer eyeglasses from donors such as Labour peer and media entrepreneur, Waheed Alli. Starmer was criticised as it emerged he had accepted more than £100,000 of gifts in recent years, including corporate hospitality trips to see Arsenal and music gigs.
As the conference in Liverpool approached, several senior Cabinet members promised not to accept any more gifts such as clothing. Starmer hoped this would shift the focus back to Labour’s politics.
But over the weekend, as Rayner prepared to make her first conference speech as a Cabinet member, a new row emerged over whether she had broken political rules in the way it had been declared that she had accepted the gift of a New Year’s Eve stay at Alli’s $2.5 million Manhattan penthouse. She had been accompanied on that trip by Sam Tarry, a former Labour MP.
In a BBC interview on Sunday before her speech, Rayner insisted she did nothing wrong. “I don’t believe I broke any rules. I think I was overly transparent,” said the deputy prime minister. She said she went further than the rules required in declaring that she had accepted a gift of the holiday.
Yet in situations such as this, the old political adages seem most apt: when you’re explaining, you’re losing.
Rayner was a ferocious critic of Tory infractions of ethics rules when she was in opposition. Now that the Conservatives are on the other side of the House of Commons, that party is revelling in the accusations of cronyism and sleaze that have so quickly enveloped Labour.
Rayner, a relentless and resilient target of Tory ire, tried to shrug it all off in her speech to the conference. She leant heavily on stories of her working-class background to imply empathy with British people whose public services are under pressure amid a mounting fiscal squeeze.
Rayner blamed the Conservatives for the state of Britain and said the new Labour government had been forced to make “tough decisions” such as means testing winter fuel payments for pensioners.
“And even tougher [choices] face families across Britain,” said Rayner.
The conference in Liverpool continues until Wednesday. The damage from the recent stream of negative stories may last much longer.