What the commentators said

The pressure on Starmer could scarcely have been greater as Labour delegates gathered in Brighton this week, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. In the 18 months since he became leader, the perception has taken hold that he’s “doomed to take Labour to another defeat at the next election”. Yet instead of talking to the public, he turned the conference into an “arena for internal conflict” by starting a fight over his party’s rulebook. His aim, said John Rentoul in The Independent, was to make it harder for a left-winger like Corbyn to be elected leader, and harder for grassroots members to deselect sitting MPs. Although he got the changes he really wanted (raising the threshold for the number of MPs needed to nominate a leadership candidate to 20%), opposition from the unions forced him to abandon his plan to scrap the “one member, one vote” system for electing leaders, ensuring his victory looked “like a defeat”.

The infighting over rule changes once again gave the impression that Labour is happiest when “contemplating its own navel”, said Andrew Grice in the same paper. But Starmer actually chalked up some notable wins this week. His party answered the charge that it is a “policy-free zone” with well-received announcements on business rates and crime, and a promise to spend £28bn a year on tackling climate change. More importantly, said Michael Crick in the Daily Mail, Starmer’s rule changes should lock out the hard-left from Labour’s leadership for good. Currently, some 40 Labour MPs would have to back the next leader – “and there is no chance of that kind of number voting for another Corbyn”. Yet Labour still look an awfully long way from power, said Marina Hyde in The Guardian – and this week’s pantomime is hardly likely to have won over normal voters, who have abandoned the party in their droves. Unfortunately, in Starmer, Labour still has a leader who looks like “the sort of person things happen to – a reactor to events rather than someone who might have the potential to shape them”.